It was back to work for me today, but luckily it was pretty painless. We had a program wide training at the Beijing 1 School about Trinity Language Assessment Training. It was nice to see my friends from work. Their school has a special door that leads to this big cafeteria, but first you have to walk through a butcher's area which was fascinating...
Tonight, Annie and I went to see some condensed Chinese Opera. We found a hotel in the Beijinger that gives a taste of traditional Chinese Opera scenes for visitors. We took a taxi to the hotel because I couldn't figure out how to get their using metro, and it took about an hour and a half to get there due to the traffic and the taxi driver not knowing where he was going. We were a little mad because we missed being able to see the actors put on their make-up which was a part of the package.
However, we still enjoyed a good show. We sat up in their highest balcony. We watched three performances. The first was a traditional classical piece of music. The second was an opera about a young woman who is sent to live in a nunnery, but is in love with a college student. She goes to the river to find her boy and a local fisherman tells her that she can ride in his boat to find him and the story begins. The showed the lyrics in English on big screens which was really nice! The third scene was the story of the Monkey King defeating the emperor's 18 soldiers. It was both funny and had some great martial arts dancing! It was a fun way to spend the evening. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready for a traditional 6 hour opera, though!
Which hotel was it? The one I stayed in was near Tienanmen Square (well, several blocks away, but walking distance) and had a pretty impressive Chinese Opera.
ReplyDeleteIt was the Liyuan Hotel.
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