Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tibetan Culture Show

On the bus to Jiuzhaigou, I met a nice young man who spoke English named Yusuan. He was on vacation with his wife, family, and in-laws. Sensing my helplessness, the family adopted me for a couple of days. I joined them for dinner and a breakfast, stayed at the same hotel and accompanied them to a Tibetan culture show.

The program was in Chinese so I didn't understand too much, except for the part Yusuan translated for me.

It began with a short history of Tibet, which bordered on propaganda. The main scene illustrated the moment hundreds of years ago, when a Tibetan king married a Chinese princess, untiting the two country together forever. The scenes featured many interesting costumes and dacning. I really enjoyed these parts because there was no language barrier.

The rest of the show featured various Tibetan pop singers who much have been quite famous, since the crowd all seemed to know the songs. Yusuan said they were very popular, but he didn't knwo them since he lived in Singapore. There was a cheesy guy, who looked a bit either Sigfried or Roy, I never really knew which one was which, a two cheesy, yet gorgeous women pop singers, and finally some cheesy Tibetan Backstreet Boys type group that made all the women scream.

Overall, it was a fine show. Since the family had a connection, the tickets were $10 cheaper. The best part for me was spending time with a Chinese family. Though I could not understand what they were sayng, I could still observe the dynamics of the various family members. I witnessed a fight and forgiveness between Yusuan and his wife. Having been in enough fights with lovers myself, I didn't need to know the language to understand what they were saying. Overall, the family was quite nice. I couldn't really talk to them, but using body language, smiles and reading eyes, I was always able to get the idea of what people were saying. I was quite thankful of their hospitality. Imagine letting some random Chinese guy you met on the bus hang out with you for a couple days, even though he doesn't speak English. It sure doesn't seem like something I'd think of doing.

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