Teacher's Day Gala

Teacher's Day Gala Celebration

 

The school, at which I work, sent three of its' foreign faces to People's Hall near Taihu Square to attend a gala celebration of  Teacher's Day which was September 10.  The Wuxi government decided to not only to celebrate education, as it also commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Republic.

 

The show featured dancers and singers performing in front of a big video screen.  It was quite well done in our opinion - the three HyLite trainers, that is.  The audience had to decide whether to focus its' attention on the performers or the back footage which featured images of Chairmans Mao, Deng, Zhang, and Hu, as well as video and pictures of Chinese engineering accomplishments, and Chinese students hard at study and play.  Dancers dressed up as soldiers, nurses, and fantasy figures.  Some of the routines were quite impressively choreographed and performed.  Some, like the soldiers dancing, were quite funny.

 

The show was a celebration of the Communist State and in some ways was quite scary.  Their military was allowed place in the show.  The foreign contribution featured, what I would term, a lesbian and hippie song-and-guitar duet, from Canada singing a Chinese song.

 

Meanwhile in America, Obama was making a live speech to all the students of America.

 

Making Up

I was ready to jump off a cliff after a quarrel I had with the wife on Tuesday.  But Wednesday, we made up.  All is fine till I screw up again.

 

9/11 Never Forget

I don't know if the events of September 11, 2001 resonate that much with Chinese students.  I will attempt to find out in two English Corners I will do today - one at a company and another at school.  9/11/01 day is one I will never forget.  The initial sympathy for America after it happened gave me some hope for the world, but it slid back into its old America-hating days.  If you don't like America, you hate the world.

 

I won't put up any flags this year to mark the day.  The U.S.A. that I know is a force for good in the world, has made a big mistake in electing Obama as their President.  America's tragic racial past, which America has made great strides to overcome and correct, has been replaced by racialism and different sorts of bigotries.  The election of Obama was an exercise in cheap grace, maybe well-intentioned, but the hope, that one day people can look at the content of one's character and not the colour of one's skin, won't be realized anytime soon.  Obama has shown himself to be against that hope.