Spring Festival Concert & Random Factoids

Spring Festival Concert

Today I was lucky to receive a random invite to a concert in Shanghai's premier concert hall and auditorium to see a government-sponsored concert celebrating foreign experts in China (of which I am oddly enough considered as an English teacher). It was a variety show for the performing arts, with performances from a classical orchestra, dancers, acrobats, a pop singer, opera singers, a Peking opera group,  and many others. Aside from the astounding acrobatic performance, in particular, I simply liked getting the exposure to the various traditional forms of music and dance.

Random Factoids

-University students are uber-controlled and treated like children: When nighttime rolls around on campus, uni students must be in their dorms (around 11 PM) or else they'll find themselves sleeping outside for the night. At some universities, they even take roll of the dorm residents and shut off the electricity to force the students to stay inside and sleep.

-Trash on the streets: Whether it is a taxi driver, a child, or a random pedestrian, people tend to litter here and the streets show it.

-Marriage traditions: I'll preface this by saying that traditions vary by city and province, but I learned the other day about a marriage tradition here in China. On the night before a wedding, the bride and groom each sleep at their respective parents homes. When wedding day arrives, the husband-to-be drives over to the bride's parents' home. He knocks on the door, waits a while, then must knock again until a child (usually) opens the door, after which the groom must pay money to the little extortionist before allowing him to pass. Then the bride and groom eat together at the table, before heading to the hotel for the wedding party (there usually aren't Christian-style wedding ceremonies), and at the party, friends bring red envelopes stuffed with money to help pay for the wedding costs and buy things for their new home.