Children's Day in China

In honour of Children's Day on Monday the 1st June, the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra held a special concert on the Sunday before. Mummy had seen it advertised and thought that it'd make an interesting "date" for her and Alex. The concert was to play some music Mummy didn't know as well as some she did including an overture from the William Tell Opera, Flight of the Bumblebee, Peter and the Wolf, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Alex was very excited and wanted to wear her "Dorothy dress", so-called because it has roses on it and Dorothy the Dinosaur from The Wiggles eats roses. She loves it because when she spins, it twirls out. She also wanted to wear Mummy's pearl necklace that Mummy'd been given by the manager of Pearl World on Gulangyu while watching her Fulbright friend and her mom shop up a storm.

We caught the bus to the hall (luckily Mummy had scoped out the location the previous day as it wasn't immediately obvious that was the hall) and bought our tickets. We timed it well as we had just enough time to find our seats in the last seated row (there were 3 wooden benches behind us)and allow Alex some exploring time where she went down the front of the hall to wave to Mummy (there were around 200 seats with extra plastic chairs set up on the side stairs). The hall was impressive in that it was exactly as I would expect to see in a western hall - complete with soundproofing and appropriate wall and ceiling treatments to ensure good listening conditions. There were also traditional chinese knots decorating the walls.

Unfortunately Mummy had chosen to do this on a whim and hadn't really done much research on the music programme - she had to rely on her rusty memory to tell Alex the "Peter and the Wolf"' story whilst the musicians were playing and the story being told in mandarin (check out the video for a small excerpt of what we experienced). Alex declared that she didn't like the wolf. Mummy doesn't know enough mandarin to know whether the story told included the duck's death or whether it was the Disney version that Mummy remembers where the duck comes back at the end. There was enough space between the rows to allow Alex some dancing room.

Trying to get her to imagine the flight of the bumble bee was fun and she got it - later in the programme when they were quizzing children on what they were playing, she turned to me with a grin and used her hand to show a bumblebee flying from flower to flower. Very cool! She also really enjoyed the William Tell overture - but that may have had something to do with the fact that she was sitting on my knee by that stage and ended up going for a horseride! When the orchestra played the Sorcerer's Apprentice, they also screened the corresponding section of the Disney movie down the front on a small screen - Alex didn't like it when the apprentice (Mickey Mouse) was smacked on the bottom and out the door by the Wizard for making bad choices at the end - too close to home perhaps.

At the end of a reasonably long progamme - almost one and a half hours - most of the audience left immediately. Mummy took Alex down to the front of the hall to show her the various instruments - mindful not to actually go near them as we didn't want any accidents! She seemed to like that and loved the kettle drums and huge gong at the back in the percussion section - however her favourite instrument was the piano. We then left and on the way out met another four year old girl called - Alyssa! We took photos at the entrance and then went shopping. We bought Daddy some extra summer shirts and a small tiara on a haircomb for Alex. We then went to Alex's requested dinner restaurant to finish the evening:
The strawberry sunde was free for Children's Day - though Alex doesn't like strawberry she managed to avoid most of the topping. We headed for home and bed.

Alex's school had also given her class a present for Children's Day - balsa wood teddies you can change clothes and faces on. Alex loves it - here she is the following day wearing her tiara whilst playing with it.