Mum and Dad visiting and delivering a comedy speech in Chinese

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No, that title doesn't mean mum and dad were delivering comedy in Chinese. Although they were receiving a few laughs whilst out here, such as from our host one night watching Dad trying to eat a crab with chopsticks, or from the tea shop owners who ripped them off in Beijing. In fact the speech was delivered by me in a charity show in the university the same week, which I will describe later, but first things first, I hadn't seen my parents for 7 months and it was wonderful to see them, so lets get onto that.
The 'rents were lucky enough to be put up in a five star hotel for the week for around £30 a night by an influential Chinese friend of mine, and I think the rooftop swimming pool went down well. On the first night after a long flight they were dragged straight out, jet-lagged, to a Chinese banquet with all kinds of unfamiliar animal body-parts and strong alcohol. As I am now used to the life here, it's hard for me to give a proper account of how everything seemed from their perspective as we walked around various bustling streets and travelled to various beaches over the following 10 days. It was certainly surreal to be accompanying my own parents in this Chinese setting and must have been surreal for them to finally see for real the place I had been sending photos of and living in for the last 7 months. At the same time it felt like I had never been away, as if we were going on holiday together to Cornwall in a heatwave.
Highlights of the week included jet-skiing (Dad and I hurtling around full-throttle and laughing from the thrill of jumping off waves, while Mum nervously trundled along at a safe distance); relaxing for a few days by my favourite surfing beach, watching how locals cook the fresh seafood with fascinating style, going on an impromptu adventure through a forested hill and stumbling across a film being made in an abandoned ghost-hotel with a film-star who thought we should know who he was; swimming in the crystal clear water of Sanya; and of course all the breakfast cereal, brownies and easter eggs brought out like water in a disaster relief effort. For more information, please refer to Mum's collection of 4000 photos, all of which can be a accompanied by a backstory if required! I look forward to being back in East Worldham in now less than two weeks.
As for the show, this was something a Chinese friend of mine roped me into. In preparation, we sat down together over many melon milk teas and converted my rough joke ideas into better Chinese, followed by a few rehearsals standing on my bed and being interrupted every few sentences by him when I made a grammar mistake. Eventually the 15-minute speech was ready and I had to wait through various Chinese girls dancing, displaying calligraphy, or singing communist opera before my slot in the show came. I was trembling with nerves and coca cola. To my surprise, I didn't forget any lines and the whole thing went down really well with the audience. I don't know if the hearty laughter was from the politeness of the Chinese, the simple sense of humour of the Chinese, or whether they just found the concept of a Westerner delivering a speech with dodgy grammar amusing, but either way I was left with a great feeling of achievement and relief.

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