Play Competition

Six of my junior girls have been working on a short English play for a school-wide competition. They have come over to my apartment several times in the past month or so to practice and get help with pronunciation and grammar. One of the girls wrote the play.

It is about a girl who has a heart disease and is sad because she is not able to do all the things she wants. One night, an angel and a demon come to her in a dream. The demon convinces her to sell her soul for one night of health and freedom. She is happy for her wish to finally come true, but she realizes that morning will bring her death. She mourns the choice she has made because she realizes she could have lived a full life, even with the illness. The playwright wrote partly from personal experience – she has had three heart surgeries and feels the limitations of her body.

This afternoon the play competition was held on our campus. 26 different campuses of Yangzhou University were participating in the competition. The girls spent the afternoon at my apartment practicing and preparing. I was a bit concerned when I went to watch them perform because they said there were about 40 groups performing. The contest started at 4pm and would probably last for about five hours. I really didn’t want to sit through five hours of plays. Fortunately, my students’ performance was only about an hour into the contest.

It was interesting to see the other performances before theirs. Many of them involved dancing to or singing “popular” American music, which was pretty funny. Even though the plays were in English, the themes were decidedly Chinese. In one play students were visited by a video game character who made them realize the importance of focusing on studies. I think almost every play mentioned the CET-4, the standardized English test that all the students have to pass. Most at least touched on the importance of dedication to family and obedience to parents.

One play talked about a girl whose family were poor farmers working very hard to pay for her college education. She felt out of place among her peers because she was the only one without a mobile phone, so she wrote her family saying she really needed a computer for school. When they sent money she went and bought a mobile phone so she could fit in, but then she found out that her father had worked so hard he was very ill. She rushed home very guilty and repentant, and her family was shocked at her frivolous purchase they had worked so hard for.

I thought the play was interesting, but then I realized that one of the judges and several observers were wiping tears from their eyes. To me it was interesting, but I guess to other people it was real life. I realized that even though they were speaking the language I can understand, I was as far as ever from really understanding Chinese life.