A contest?

Alex had been asked to be in a performance - and Brett too! Alex had been hard at work (apparently) learning a performance with children from different classes. This had necessitated practices at different times. Originally Brett had agreed to be involved in the performance (he had to "give away" his daughter) as it was to be on a Sunday, however that changed at some stage to a Saturday and he couldn't do it as he was teaching. So he had said no, only to have the performance moved to the Sunday again...he was disappointed as he really wanted to be involved.

And so it was that Mummy and Alex headed to the school on Sunday afternoon to prepare for this performance. Mummy is sure that many hours of labour went into organizing and making the costumes for this performance - and felt a little left out really as she wasn't able to jump in and help with anything. Realistically, Mummy knows she hasn't an artistic bone in her body so perhaps it was for the best - these costumes are pretty impressive!

The children are from different classes so Mummy isn't really sure how children were chosen for this. There was never a "do you want your child to participate" note home. Here are some photos of the "getting ready at school" part - note the traditional "dot" in the middle of the forehead.Then we jumped onto a bus to get to the performance venue. There was a new shopping mall opening and they were conducting a contest for school children to use recycled materials and to enact a story (I believe most were traditional stories). It looked pretty serious - security was standing behind the judges.Daddy and Sebastien joined us here. Here are the children getting dressed in the middle of the Mall forecourt. You'll notice that every other child has their (winter) clothes on underneath their costume. Not Alex - who has her own little inbuilt heater!Here is Alex with her veil over her head - as the new bride.And on stage performing:And the obligatory photo with the teachers.
And according to the Kindergarten's website (and translated poorly through Google translate): "Xiamen City Bureau of Education launched the South China Mall special "Family Green Fashion Show" competition, a total of 32 kindergartens participated in the contest... we won second prize."