The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Christmas in Yilan just keeps on trucking. Two days ago I wrote about my Christmas lessons and the special event at Penglai. But Christmas didn’t end on Christmas… I’ve continued to take part in festivity after festivity.
Last night we ETA’s put on a Christmas culture show for the public at Yilan Presbyterian Church.1 I was pretty worried I wasn’t going to make it due to a Chinese presentation, but I was lucky enough to get in on the action. The show involved singing, dancing, Christmas trivia quizzes, and even a magic show. It was all in English but those who showed up seemed to all enjoy it, and we all had a great time putting it on.
Today it was Nanao Elementary’s turn to have a big holiday event: a big orchestra concert. Their orchestra program just started this February, so this was their first concert ever. We met up around 5pm for a buffet with all 100+ kids and teachers.
The concert started around 6:30. It reminded me of all the holiday recitals I went to growing up to go see Naomi perform. Each grade went up and did a little performance first, and then the orchestra went up (mostly 4-6th graders) and played some great tunes. The kids were fantastic, especially considering how long (or not) they’ve been playing.
You really have to see it to believe it, though, so here are some videos:2
There were also many little kindergardeners and little siblings around. You could tell they’d heard their older siblings practicing at home. ^^
And finally, here was one of the big hit songs from the night: La Bamba. I’ve previously mentioned that my kids like to (and can) dance—here’s more videographic evidence. ^^ Keep in mind that these are fourth and fifth graders.
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I was sitting in the pews waiting for things to start, and started looking in the hymnal. It was very cool, for me, at least—it had both Chinese characters and the Taiwanese pronunciation in Pe̍h-ōe-jī, and had a first-line index in English as well. I also learned a new character: 祢, another variant of nǐ meaning “you” (like 你 or 妳, male and female, respectively) but for God. It’s the Chinese character for the capitalized “You.” They had Bailey’s favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision, too. ↩
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The second song here is 童話 by Michael Wong. I just heard it for the first time tonight, but I really like it. Here’s the music video—be warned, it’s one of those classic crazy Chinese music videos. I couldn’t find one that was just the song.
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Related posts:
- I’m Seriously Dreaming of a White Christmas
- Buklavu
- English Easy Go!
- Atayal cultural festival
- Exploring Nanao, part 3: sports day, hot springs, Sayun’s bell, and 高峰
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Tags: Christmas, church, concert, dancing, festival, music, Nanao, religion, Taiwan
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