Oh what a night!

I went to dinner with Mr. Kline and Miss Ren at the hotel restaurant. We put our order in and were settled at our table around 5:45. Miss Ren asked the waitress something (in Chinese, so, as usual, I had no idea what was going on) and she came back with a TV remote. She put on the TV, and there we were, on the game show! The entire restaurant watched the end of Part I. The wait staff stopped what they were doing to laugh at poor Maddie and Joe wipe out on instant replay. It was lovely dinner entertainment :) Part II, with Sam's victory, will air tomorrow.

The students, their host families, teachers, and other Huipu High School students gathered tonight at Linhai Foreign Language School for "An Evening Party with Friends." I arrived at the school with Mr. Kline and Miss Ren at 6:45. We walked into a large, circular room with a red banner welcoming us. There were balloons and streamers all over. The room had lighting and a disco ball set up on the ceiling. The Huipu students arranged desks with refreshments around the performance area. It looked like it could be set up for a school dance!

The students gathered and the evening began. Thomas and Blair were late, but had the best reason: Blair took Thomas to a salon for a massage and to get their hair washed and styled! They both looked very sharp ;) John exclaimed, "[Blair] is the Chinese version of Thomas!" And Sam agreed, "They are the same person!" And then, the party continued...

The Huipu students arranged a lovely program. They had two hosts, one girl who spoke Chinese, and a boy who translated in English. We started with a musical trio playing traditional Chinese instruments. Amazing! It was a very long song completely memorized. Next, a group of girls performed a Chinese pop song, but in traditional performance outfits. One of the members was also our host. Another girl sang a Chinese ballad- she was an excellent singer and I made sure to tell her at the end of the evening.
Next, the hosts got some audience participation and the American students played a game. They made four teams, each with 3 students and one host parent. Each person had 1 minute to fish marbles out of a bowl of dark water only using chopsticks. It was so much fun to watch! The kids' chopstick skills are impressive. All participants received beautiful Beijing Opera chopsticks. The winners wore red scarves.

After the game, Nathan performed an original song on the guitar. He wrote a song about his experiences in Linhai. It was wonderful! He is very talented and the song was creative. The audience loved it.

A ballet troupe danced for us, including acrobatics, then a boy played a song on a Mongolian instrument. He played it with a bow and it actually looked like a croquet club with a string!

Next, the moment we were all waiting for... our game show debut! The school received a copy of the game show DVD, so we watched a short clip. It is even more hilarious on tape with all the graphics, sound effects, and replay after replay of the wipeouts :) All the students and parents really got a kick out of it!

The students played another game kind of like Password. The US students had their backs to a board, then the hosts flipped paper over to a Chinese word. The Chinese students had to act out the word and the US student guessed. This (like everything else) was fun to watch! Some of the kids had really tough words! John and his host Justin won it.

After the game, we heard a performance by a Huipu student- Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time." They LIVE for Britney and the Backstreet Boys here- which I LOVE because it takes me back to 8th grade! It was kind of like all the KTV singing our students have been doing the last week. Next, two students sang a duet of a Chinese ballad. Again, both were excellent singers.

The Huipu and Chagrin students closed together by singing "Auld Lang Syne" in both English and Chinese. It was a nice end to the evening. We took pictures for at least 20 minutes after the song. Everyone loves these guys! New students we met this evening were even asking for their email addresses- it was insane!

I cannot believe how close the students have grown in the last week. The host parents requested that the students come with us on Saturday and Sunday to Hangzhou and Wuzhen. The families will be on the road with us until Shanghai! The Huipu students will definitely receive a warm, warm welcome when they come to Ohio!

Tomorrow is our last full day in Linhai. We will attend English, "papercuts," and Chinese calligraphy classes in the morning. In the afternoon, the students will play basketball. (Miss Ren invited Mr. Kline and me over to her house during this time. Mr. Kline can go- I want to play basketball!!!) In the evening, we will have our farewell dinner.

This week has gone by so quickly! Have a nice day back home and I will post again tomorrow morning!

P.S. I am going to break some school rules tomorrow- I'll have ESPN.com on my Blackberry for LeBron's announcement from 9 AM - 10 AM. The boys and I are really missing the sports updates at home & are following free agency updates from here! Let's hope LeBron remains a Cavalier- our Chinese students want to "run into them" when they're in Ohio :)