Reitaku Night’s Grand Finale Presentation Extravaganza!!

Reitaku Night’s Grand Finale Presentation Extravaganza!!

Hey, everyone. Sorry it has taken me so long once again to post a blog. I’ve been busy with Reitaku night preparations, planning my trip to Japan/China, and trying to get into Grad school. That and being in Taiwan. I’d like to take this opportunity to extend the blog shout to all the Czechs whose names I am about to butcher through anglicized spelling, Jan, Suzanna, and Ylianna? As well as Elodie of the French (whose name is pronounced like melody, would probably have something like é in it, were it to be spelled correctly) who also it turns out has been reading my blog. If you’re reading this and I haven’t mentioned you, it’s not because I don’t love you, or think you have a great personality, but it’s likely because I have no idea how to spell your name also.

So, last Friday we finally had the great grand performance of the Reitaku International Night (Reitaku, by the way, is a Japanese name and pronounced nothing like it looks. In Japanese, “R”s are pronounced like “L”s and vice versa, so I get called “Lyan! ” and Reitaku is pronounced more like Lye Tai Gu. In Chinese, it’s further from what you’d expect coming out as Leedtze or some such thing.) So yeah, we even all got matching black hoodies with the name spelt on it, which I for some reason still seem to pronounce Rei-Ta-Ku. While the hoodies mean we can all act like gangstas, in actual fact they were intended for the chorus mainly, that we used to conclude the evening with a stirring rendition of “We Are the World,” sung variously as “We arl da wold!”, “We are wold!” and “Mmmph, mmph, mmph” (I myself, tended to sing the latter variety).

Lucky for the audience, in this instance I was singing in a group, and therefore not subjecting them to my complete lack of tonality on a one-on-basis (though I did provide the Ryan Clement musical experience in the after-party, or so I’m told ;)). Early in the evening, they were not so lucky as to avoid my horrible spoken Chinese which must have made Emperor WuDi himself turn over in his grave. Or at the very least, John A. MacDonald, as the presentation was a cultural representation of Canada, but because I only had like 3 minutes, a week’s preparation, and a fairly limited capacity to communicate in Chinese, the presentation basically degenerated into trying to say things like “Quebec has poutine” and “Saskatchewan” in Chinese (Saskatchewan, for what its worth, is pronounced Sa Ke Qi Huan). I also danced around like an idiot, inexplicably pretending to ride a horse, while dressed in everything with a maple leaf that I could get my hands on, including a flag as a cape and a tuque I borrowed from a Japanese girl (and suppose I should probably return one of these days). Needless, I was dressed like an over-the-top patriot at a gold-medal hockey game, with so many maple leafs that any country in the world would think I was going to far with the patriotism (Except perhaps, with the US, where the American flag is considered casual dress). The other countries, of course, had talented people who actually did a GOOD job of their presentations. So after tripping over my flag-cape on the way out, France, represented by Valery, Angeline, and Elodie (who likely have accents in their names somewhere, but I’m not sure where or what so I’m not going to even try) when on to do a comparison between Taiwan and France as well as a song sung well in French. The Germans (Y/Jacob, Katherine, and Lynda) didn’t say a word, but rather exhibited a form of entirely serious interpretive dance, done to a mix of classical pieces and hip hop hits, and centered around a can of Heineken (which is actually Dutch, but shh! Don’t tell anyone!). The Germans even went so far as to sacrifice the health of their knee caps, jumping off the stage for the sole delight of the audience. The Japanese did a puppet show, which I didn’t entirely understand but it looked nice. The Czechs provided some minutes silence as they all conveniently found somewhere else to be on Reitaku night, while the Koreans enacted their centuries-old tradition of working the lights and sound system. Taiwanese decided not to celebrate their country, less the Chinese army would come across the straits and declare war on Reitaku.

In addition, there was cheerleading, a quiz show, musical numbers, and an entire segment dedicated solely to cross-dressing (for which, the Japanese and Taiwanese men were all too excited about). There were also two small plays, one about a child detective named Konan (based on a Japanese cartoon show, and not related to Conan the barbarian as I had earlier expected and hoped). Konan is basically the Japanese answer to Scooby-doo, but instead of flower children and hound-dogs, you have stereotypical school children, cartoonish smiles and Manga pop music. Oh, and hard core violence of course.

The other play, in which I acted the part of a stereotypical western drunk on the subway who hits on women and gets into fights (at least, I think I was acting). Basically, it’s a love story about a plush toy geek, played by Jacob of the German clan, who tries to get the “piaoliang de xiaonu” (hot chick), played by Katherine. I am the initial antagonist, who makes a move on Katherine, prompting Jacob to act and save the day, and for us to have what some might call a fight scene, after which I get dragged off by the rest of the passengers on the subway (this time, though, they were only pretending to drag me off). My current reputation as a drunk who constantly hits on women was further exasperated, not only by the aforementioned after party, but by the Powerpoint Photo Memories they showed before the show, which effectively had two pictures of me, one with my arm around Katherine who does not need to act to show that she feels uncomfortable, and one with me collapsed under a bottle of rye whiskey. These 2 photos were the most repeated slides in the performance. Yeah! Go team me!

For the most part, the performance was well received. The Japanese and Taiwanese put a ridiculous amount of work into it, practicing like every night (including Friday and Saturday) and being genuinely surprised when you didn’t want to practice every single night for like 4 hours too. At about 1 am on Thursday night, they told me they wanted everyone, including me, up for 8 am practice (I told them, no, but the next morning sure enough there were three 8 am intercom calls, preceded by high pitch squeals and various incomprehensible banter). As far as can I tell, Taiwan is a nation of morning people who just love doing things at ridiculously early times and constantly try to get me to wake up on the same time, saying not “Do you want to get up at 8 am?” but “You have to get up at 8 am!”

So in the end though, I think most people had fun, though some took it way too seriously, though I have decided it is an Asian custom to take things way too seriously (see aforementioned blogs about extra-curricular activities). When Jacob and I tried to “break it down” in the wings, to alleviate the “butterflies in the stomachs” of our compatriots, we got a few angry stares and shouts of “shut up.” Still, though, I’d say the actual night was fun for the most part, if not a little crazy, and the after-party was quite a spectacle as Jacob and I broke loose and raced office chairs and got jiggy with it with all the Japanese girls. Of course, a few of the Taiwanese-Japanese decided to try heavy drinking for the first time, which lead to more than one person being fireman carried back to their rooms. Still though, it was nice to see everyone finally let loose after being so serious for so long. I’m still not sure if I understand the Taiwanese sense of humour, though I won’t go so far as to assume they don’t have a sense of humour. What they don’t seem have is a sense of black humour, as the English words of encouragement “go break a leg on stage” were generally less than appreciated. Sarcasm is also generally lost on them, or taken literally with the electronic dictionaries being whipped out to figure out what the crazy Westerner is saying. An after show rendition of “We are the losers, my friend! And we’ll keep on losing to the end! No time for champions, cause we are the losers OF THE WORLD!!” was following by shouts of “Weishenme!” (why, but generally more emphatic than in English), “Zhen da ma!?” (Really? Also more emphatic than in English), and “Bu shi!!” (No way!) Of course, these are the same responses they gave to me when I told them I spent one weekend on the moon, which I liked because it was still less developed than many other more popular tourist destinations.

Ah well. At the end of performance itself, I even got a bouquet of flowers from one of the Taiwanese girls who I met earlier in the week who works for a campus paper. I’m not sure if the flowers were a good will gesture, or an attempt to woo me (which I must admit I don’t have too much experience with, always finding it strange that any woman could actually find me sexually attractive). Yeah, that’s right, I’m a guy who doesn’t understand woman, of any nationality, which as I understand it basically makes me the same as any other man in the world. At any rate, I figure I might as well do some form of investigative journalism myself, in the form of meeting her for dinner and language exchange. Hehe, who knows.

In other news, I went to Taiwan’s big computer convention this weekend with the Germans Rebecca (who loves to be called Becky) and Jacob, which basically had more crowds and over-the-top promoters than any actual deals as well as spending some time chilling in Ximen, talking about how my Taiwanese roommate has seemingly hooked-up with a Japanese cheerleader, and watching a movie about Penguins (“The March of the Emperor”, which, as the name suggests, has surprising similarities to Star Wars). Oh yeah, and another German girl, Charlotte told me her own true story about being attacked by sharks in open water about 1 km off the Australian coast (and to think, you thought MY story was interesting enough to read).
See you next time