China Trip: Friday, 28 July 2006

8:00am
There were no classes today, just a full-dress rehearsal for the concert. I put on my geeky glasses and teeth, and crack up the entire school. Jenny started to tear – it was way too much for her! Apparently I looked like some HK TV guy named "Ah Soo". Each class practised their parts and how to get on and off the stage. The students also practised how to receive their certificates and how to move back and forth from their seats.

"Ah Soo"

Class photos

During this second week of our stay, they tore up the road outside the church compound and laid a new pipeline. Whilst it was super-noisy and they annoyingly began at an early time of 6am every morning, they were fast. In less than one week the trench was complete. These photos were taken pre- and post-digging.

Instant pipeline: dug within 1 week!

12:00pm
Jenny, Megan and I took out Felix and the students in the play for lunch. We had "bamboo rice" – some rice, meat and veggies served in a bamboo bowl. There were about 20 of us and it cost ¥205 (~$36.61) in total.



7:30pm
The finale of the 2-week course had arrived: the Students' Concert. The Director gave a speech and presented each student their certificate. Then the Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Special-Advanced classes each gave a performance. Our Special class sang "I Want It That Way", then performed "You Are Special", and finished with "The Power of Your Love". As I watched them sing while I was playing the piano, I could see that they had given it their all. The teachers and TAs sang a Mandarin song: "Amazing Hands" and finished with "Auld Lang Syne". We had a final chat with our students – there were many tears and memorable photos.