Hi everyone!

I am back in Shenzhen now....we had our opening night on Wednesday. It went really well! It was great to see the show, and equally fascinating to observe the Chinese audience. There were two big screens that displayed the dialogue of the show, in English and Chinese. I found it quite distracting. I always had one eye on the stage, and the other eye on those screens. The audience was more reserved than what I'm accustomed to in New York...there was only a smattering of applause after each song. But that’s probably just how the culture is. Though, they weren’t shy about taking flash pictures or making videos with their cameras or cell phones! That type of activity was quite rampant and seemingly acceptable.

Last Sunday we went to a huge market. One of the mothers loves purses, and she kept asking around for them. A guy approached us and said, “You want purses? Follow me.” He took us up a staircase, down a hallway, down another hallway—by this time we were in a rather secluded area, though still within the confines of the market—then through a set of doors which he locked behind us, then through another set of doors. Finally we were escorted into a room filled with all sorts of designer purses: Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Coach, etc. for incredibly cheap prices. ($50!!) None of us actually bought anything, but we were definitely tempted.

One of the guys on our tour related a similar experience when he asked around for DVDs at another market. He too was led to a DVD room. But with him, the Chinese guy was on a walkie-talkie with his partner….apparently they had to wait for a certain signal before they could open the secret room.

Our tour member also told us another interesting story. Back in Longgang, he was partying with the crew one night and returned to our hotel at 2:00 am, only to be stopped at the door. They weren’t letting anyone inside the hotel, and he could see that all the hotel employees behind the front desk were wearing surgical masks over their faces. Apparently they had been cleaning the lobby floor, and they used too much cleaning fluid. He waited outside for quite a while…..when he grew impatient, he just held his breath and ran to the elevators!

I definitely wonder about the lack of health/safety/environmental regulations here in China. All the sanitation workers on the streets wear surgical masks as well as gloves. Some of the manholes on the streets aren’t covered. There is so much pollution that the sky is usually gray. It’s awful!

I have a Chinglish story for you. Last week, we all had to give our passports to company management, so they could process our visas for South Korea. The next day, one of the mothers found out that they lost her passport (!!!!)….so she and our company manager went to Guangzhou for a replacement passport. When the mom was filling out the paperwork, she laughed when she saw the bottom of the form:  “Loser’s signature_____" She had no choice but to sign her name! Our company manager is never going to let her live it down. (Thankfully my passport came back with no problems!)

I’m off to bed…..talk to you all later!

Christine :-)

Go back