"You go! Chinese Game! yes! Fun! I take picture!"

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Well...where to begin, I just got back from what was....basically the highlight of my trip. I WISH dom/robin/nancy/rich/ruth/anyone really had been there to see and take pictures, I wouldn't have heard the end of it. I spent today doing pretty much nothing because I woke up at 3pm and when I got the Nanjing museum (which I had planned to see today), it had already closed and I had no other real plans so I went back to the hostel. When I got back I was in a bit of a bad mood and was a bit pissed off at Nanjing so I went to the internet cafe and pissed about for 3 hours on the internet. After this bored me I decided to go for a walk around Fuzi-mao (which is like a riverside shopping street based around a Confucious temple, it's all very garish and the theme seems to be that nothing is worth having unless it's draped in neon lights. Anyway, I walked along there for a while, reached the end and decided to keep walking down the road to see where it took me.

I ended up outside a museum which was mentioned in the guide book but only in passing and I don't remember it saying anything nice about the place. In any case it was open, I had 50 yuan in my pocket to spare and I had nothing better to do. I paid the entrance fee, but was shouted at in chinese by 3 of the guys waiting outside when I tried to walk in. I stood around waiting to see what was happening and after a few moments a girl in a white uniform ran out of a side shack towards me saying "come, come, I speak english, show you museum". It seemed I wasn't allowed in the museum on my own and she seemed to be part of the package for what I had payed, so I followed her.

After a series of not very interesting pavillions and rock gardens she said "Ahh! we now see music show! Come, come, we go". I was led into a small hall where there were tables and chairs and about 30 odd chinese people seated already. I was escorted right to the front next to the stage and sat down. My guide ran off and I was left to watch the show. It was actually very good, the music was traditional chinese stuff with a drummer, a harp player, a lute player, a flute player and a...strings...on a box...player. Tra la la, all very nice. They then left the stage and a contortionist/acrobatic girl came on who was also very good, bit of a pot belly on her which was odd... After she went off the flute player returned for a solo, which was also pretty impressive.

When all this was over, my guide scuttled back over and said "Now we have Chinese Game! very good!", which was the point where I thought...fuck, they're gonna pick on me, I know it. The drummer came back on stage with a microphone, he said a few things in chinese, people laughed etc etc, he then brought on a veiled girl who had 3 red balls covered in cloth in her hand. He said some more things and then the veiled girl started chucking the balls into the crowd. The last one, inevitably, landed smack on my teacup, broke it into peices and soaked me in tea (which thankfully, I had drunk some of already and it wasn't that hot). My tour guide gathered up the peices of cup, said "You go! Chinese Game! yes! Fun! I take picture!" and pushed me on stage.

I was joined by two chinese men (who ironically, didn't speak chinese either, they were from california). The drummer/presenter then proceeded to make fun out of us for a couple of minutes and finally pulled the first chinese guy aside saying "NUMBER ONE!!!". He then asked the guy a very long question and shoved the microphone in his face, the guy replied in english "I'm very sorry, I don't speak any chinese! I'm from California" the presenter said "awwrrhgh", hit the guy in the chest with a huge peice of cloth which had been knotted into a kind of mace and motioned him towards the veiled woman, who gave him a red string charm thing and pushed him offstage. He repeated the same ritual with "NUMBER TWO!!!" he laughed like a drain when he found out that this guy didn't speak chinese either, so it was "awwrrhgh", hit in the chest with cloth, veiled woman, string doll, off the stage. The presenter then turned to me, paused and laughed his bleeding head off. He spent a few minutes ripping the piss out of me in Chinese and finally hit me with the peice of cloth and said "go go!", but sadly he didn't mean go offstage. I was escort stage left where I was presented by the flutest holding a huge red robe. While the presenter entertained the crowd (with more jokes about westerners I assume) I was clothed in the robe, given a matching hat, a large red sash and pushed back onstage - cue massive laugh from audience. The presenter, after he had stopped laughing, manhandled me into standing a few feet apart from the veiled woman. I was handed the cloth mace which had been seperated into two ends so I was holding one end of the cloth, the middle bit was the huge knot of cloth and the other end of the cloth was held by the veiled woman. While I was in a state of utter confusion, the presenter and the veiled woman started bowing to the audience, when I didn't bow with them, the presenter hit me with a fan! We then proceeded to bow to the wall behind us, the two sides of the stage and back to the crowd. The veiled woman then sat down again, the cloth mace thing was taken away from us, the flutist came back on, and I was pushed into joining a dance around the veiled woman!. After a while the dancing ceased, I stopped and the presenter took me aside and said in english "I count three and we pull off veil yes?!", so the audience counted down and we pulled off the veil to reveal the pretty lute player. The presenter then shouted something at me, my guide who was still sitting where I had been shouted to me "You take this girl home to england?" to which I said "Yes!" into the microphone - more laughter. The presenter said "No chance!!!", pushed me towards the veiled woman, she gave me a golden string doll, I was de-robed, escorted off stage and the show was over!! So ends my story of the clueless westerner being made into a dancing monkey for other nanjing tourists :D. Unfortunatly, my guide hadn't been able to figure out how to use my camera, so I havn't got any pictures of me onstage, but I do have pictures of the musicians and contortionist so take a look when I put them on facebook 😊

When next I write I'll either be back in Beijing or in Japan, depending on when I can be bothered to write next 😊

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[anonymous]

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