TV star!

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Today I participated in the filming of a Chinese talk show. The entire episode of this local talk show was about Ohio State's Chinese program and the Americans in it learning Chinese. Terribly interesting, should do wonders for their ratings! We were on this big stage with purple lights and white sheer fabric draped in the back and a green teletubby...ok so it wasn't a teletubby, but they did have a green little pudgy alien looking cartoon character as the backdrop. My Chinese professor who has lived in the US for twenty years and so can no longer decode the Chinese thinking process asked "what's that?". The host said "that is a cartoon character." So that resolves it.

This reminds me of how you pass by random "Merry Christmas" posters with a big smiling Santa Claus on them in the middle of July. They put them on entrances to restaurants and in shops - perhaps because they are pretty? Well, Chinese people are probablly equally perplexed as to why people have tattoed "friend" "love" on their arms. My friend reportedly saw an American with the Chinese word for fecal matter tattoed on his neck once.

So we went on the stage and all sat in chairs on the two edges of the stage facing each other. The Qingdao TV Station invited me to bring my boss from the maid service and all the girls who work there. I thought they would get interviewed but they just sat in the back row the whole time. They did interview my boss for a few moments, but the host cut her off because I suppose she was putting in her plug for the company. Then I said, "Would you like me to introduce you to my colleagues at work? These are some of the people to whom I teach English. " And she said, "Why don't you just pick one, whoever is an exceptionally good student, and introduce her." Oooh, shot down.

So I had to pick just one, and I picked Wei Li because she was the one I could justify picking since she is the only English major. She stood up but the host didn't actually want her to say anything and just moved on.

The fascinating subject of the talk show was "how do you study Chinese? what methods do you use? what classes do you take?". This went on and on until it was time for the "performances". Who will come up there and sing or do flips or perform a little tap dance with their shoelaces tied together? One of the first year students was incredibly brave and just happily marched up to the middle of the stage and started singing a Chinese song. She was good too.

Then they asked another first year student who went to William and Mary with me to do "wu shu," Chinese martial arts. He said he needs to get ready first. He needed to stretch so he didn't hurt himself. He wanted to get off the stage and go stretch but the host would have none of it and insisted he do it on stage. She said "we won't film it," yeah right. So he reached down and touched his toes, took a squatting position he probablly practices plenty in the Chinese-style restrooms, and did lunges all while sticking his butt towards the camera. I really hope they don't show that on TV. But they might show it after adding a blinking sign saying "foreign tushy!!!"

We all had to sing a song called "Friends" at the end. I was originally terrified of this, but it turned out there were about 30 people singing it together so it wasn't so bad. But if you see me on Chinese TV swaying my arms back and forth like a dame from the musical "South Pacific" please don't laugh at me, I'm just deferring to the tastes of the Chinese.

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