Something That Scares You

So you're supposed to do something that scares you every day. Well, Don and I did just that Friday evening. We performed in Mandarin in front of a packed house (a thousand students we guesstimate) along with Rob and Yoshi, a Japanese teacher. What? But I didn't think you guys spoke Mandarin, you say. We don't! We had no idea what we were saying. We were given the script for this short skit two weeks ago and the four of us practiced it a couple of times before that evening.

Yoshi had studied Mandarin in Japan so he memorized his lines. I tried but just don't have the required brain power to memorize. I'm not sure I ever did. I would be a very poor student in China because that's all they ever do. So I relied on a cheat sheet that was my attempt to approximate the Mandarin sounds with English. Our act, as you will see below, required us to play instruments too so Rob was able to tape his cheat sheet to his cymbals. Don memorized his lines easily and even managed to play the gong on cue.

We were very nervous but knew that the students would enjoy seeing their teachers make a fool of themselves. They did! Whatever we said was very amusing for them. Or maybe it was just our impeccable pronunciation or delightful stage presence. I'm happy they enjoyed it. We are always correcting them so it must have been nice to see us mangle their language and be able to judge us for a change. We have received a range of reviews. Some were brutally honest. Some, I think, were just being polite. Hope they hold on to their memories cause that was a one night only gig.

Enjoy our performance!