We had a 5:00 AM wakeup call in Wuxi to get back to the Shanghai airport for our flight to Beijing. The hotel gave us these odd breakfasts in little tupperware tubs that included an ear of corn, yogurt, a little cake thing, and some other odds and ends. Nice of them, but a bit odd to my American palette. The bus took us to the Shanghai HongQiao International Airport, which is not the airport we flew into several days prior. Despite being an international airport, I got the sense that it was mostly domestic flights, which is yet another thing I think few of the American friends I have will have done: flown domestically within China. Maybe I'm just totally out to lunch on my expectations of my friends. Anyway. Moving on.
The flight was pretty short, only a couple hours, and before you knew it, we were in China's capital city. We weren't, however, in the presence of our guide for about another hour. Some wires got crossed and we didn't know where to meet. So I got a melon pop to pass the time. All was well in the end - our guide, Wendy, found us and led us to our bus.
Some shots from the drive in:
We went right to the Beijing opera house, which unfortunately was not our venue:
It's a pretty cool building. Instead, we went to the Hall of the People, where the opening ceremony would be broadcast on Chinese national television the next day:
We went in the back entrance, pictured above. We had to stand in a line in alphabetical order and be checked on by one by the guard, who compared our passport to a list of names he had been given. I was at the end of the line, obviously, so I was far away from the "action" so to speak, but as I approached I noticed Chu standing off to the side, letting everyone else in in front of him. When I got up there, I asked him what was going on. He just shrugged: "they won't let me in".
Everyone else got in, and they shut the gate. Dr. Hatteberg tried to find out what was going on. We waited around for maybe thirty minutes before Chu was finally let in. It seems like what happened was that their list had a typo in Chu's name, and since it didn't match his passport, they didn't let him in until someone had gone back to check the original records we sent them to get the proper spelling of his name.
But it all worked out eventually, and we went in to do a soundcheck and staging for the next day's opening ceremony event. It looked like this:
After that was all over - and we were only in there a few minutes - we got back on the bus and left for the hotel at long last. In a show of solidarity for the earlier events at the gate that began as a joke but actually ended up quite touching, the back half of the bus began singing pieces from our repertoire with "Chu" traded out for the actual words, which included, among others, "May the road rise to meet Chu", "Chu is the sky of the sun", and "I can see the light of a clear Chu morning".
At last, we got to our Beijing hotel, which would be our home for the next week, and the longest hotel stay of the trip.
Dinner was at the hotel, followed by free time. A few of us ventured out into Beijing really just to see the city on our own for a bit. Saw this sign:
Tee hee.
Hung out in someone's room for a bit then went to bed.
The next day, we had a bit of a free morning, since the only thing on our schedule was the opening ceremony. Ethan, Justin, and I decided to walk around the city a bit, just to see it, but we only made it as far as the Häagen-Dazs two blocks away.
I didn't get anything.
A round of late morning naps at the hotel followed, then a gathering to set off for the Palace once again. We had a much easier time getting through the gate.
We got shuffled into our dressing room, with an idea that we could sit around awhile before we were needed, but then the guide told us that we'd be going on very soon, and we would need to go ahead and change into our concert black. So we hurriedly did so, only to sit around and wait in the hot dressing from for an hour instead. At last, they were ready to have us go on stage to find our place with all the other groups for the big finale. Since there was no audience, I took a few pictures:
What a production.
We were rehearsing ode to joy, by the way, which we had gotten a single alto part for right before leaving the US, which was (of course) in Chinese, so I don't think anyone knew what was going to be expected of us with regards to that piece. I think the intention was for all the groups to sing in their native language at once as the grand finale (of the opening ceremony), which is more or less what happened, except most people in our group knew the German better, so we sang that. Dunno if there were any German choirs who felt their territory encroached upon.
Back in our dressing room, we had another long wait before our slot in the ceremony, so we played Mafia and sat around. One weird thing: the people behind this ceremony, which I guess would be the Chinese government, provided dinner for us at the performance, since we were there from about 2:00 in the afternoon until late evening, but they weren't terribly accommodating to those with different dietary needs, in that they served every single person - and I am not making this up - a Big Mac. Like, from McDonald's. Every singer in every choir got a Big Mac for dinner, and no drink. That obviously didn't sit well with the two vegetarians in our group who had luckily thought ahead enough to bring some granola bars, but I really have to wonder how well it sat with the very likely Hindu choir from India.
Anyway, we eventually did our performance of Nyon Nyon by Jake Runestad for the opening ceremony, which was broadcast live on national Chinese television, which you could only ever see if you had the secret link to the unlisted Youtube video recording of it. So....here you go:
It's super embarrassing
Then some more waiting, then being shuffled back for the aforementioned grand finale. In the dressing room, we were given little American flags to wave around, as we were told that all groups would have their respective flags to wave during the finale performance of Ode to Joy. Then, while lined up to go on stage, a stagehand rushed by and took all of our flags back. We then went on stage to sing and were the only group without flags to wave. This was an odd episode; no one knew if it was literally the Chinese government trying to downplay American participation in their festival or if it was just miscommunication.
But that was it for that day. We had a busride back to the hotel and went to sleep. The next morning we gave a brief performance at a middle school. I am not sure why. I cannot tell you how many times on this trip we were told to go somewhere and do five songs or something without knowing exactly what the event was. We returned to this middle school like 3 times over the course of the week, each time for a different purpose, and I really still don't know why.
Anyway, this is what it looked like:
They then took us to this University like an hour away for a cafeteria-style lunch with nothing to drink.
Which was then followed by our next weird mini-performance at a concert hall with perhaps the worst acoustics I've ever experienced. The sound like literally stopped at the edge of the stage. It was almost impressive how they managed to confine sound to only the area on the stage so well. Luckily, we were only doing about 10 minutes - like 3 pieces - of music. We were there for most of the afternoon, though, watching all the other groups perform. Which was alright. There were few opportunities for us as participants to hear other choirs at the festival. Wish the concert hall could have sounded better.
After the concert, we changed back into our non-concert clothes - which slowly but surely became more and more of a relief each time it happened during the trip - and were taken to a place called Silk Street. I had a vague idea that this would be a shopping stop, so I wasn't that excited, until Dr. Hatteberg related to us some tales from his last trip there, when the Cardinal Singers came in 2010. Apparently the name of the game at this place is haggling. While he seemed more excited about the vaunted Pearl Market - which I had heard about prior to the trip, and which we would be visiting later in the week - he was practically giddy describing the deals one could get and what a good rule of thumb is for an acceptable price for anything in the store.
Silk Street is not just a bazaar for silk, it's more like a somewhat cloistered American-style shopping mall, with large-floorplan department stores lined with smaller specialty shops like electronics or clothes. The big difference, of course, is that you can, if you have the talent for haggling, get things for way less than their listed price. The guides themselves told us not to pay more than around 20% of what was being asked, which gives you a sense of just how much inflating is being done. That said, the prices aren't really all that outrageous when converted to US$. Maybe comparable to higher-end department stores, especially in high cost-of-living cities like New York. So even when you didn't manage to hit that magic 20%, you still got a good deal.
I went in with the intention of getting some little trinket or knicknack for cheap just to say I had done it. I didn't expect to actually want anything I saw. But then we found the musical instrument section, and suddenly I HAD to have a Tibetan singing bowl.
This may remind you of an episode involving a certain silk robe.
I'll say this: I finally understand what is more stereotypically thought of as women's love of shopping after Silk Street. The process of haggling was addictive, and getting a barn-burner deal on something, even something useless and inconsequential, was an indescribable rush. I imagine it's similar to buying a bunch of new outfits at JC Penny's on a 60% off sale, but even more satisfying and exhilarating, since I had the feeling of having wrested this victory through my own power and cunning.
I didn't even get that great of a deal, to be honest. Susie, Elliot, and I got three singing bowls, originally ¥260 each, for ¥200 total. Elliot and I also got a button-up shirt each, initially ¥300 per, for ¥180 total. You'll notice these did not even beat the 20% benchmark. I did way better at the Pearl Market. Still, it was great fun.
Dinner followed, then a busride back to the hotel. Through the dark and rain, I caught my first glimpse of the Forbidden City:
The next day was a nice, bit more low key day with only one performance-based item on the schedule, a demonstration that afternoon. First, however, was a visit to the Temple of Heaven, a large complex with a number of buildings and statues and things dotted amongst the woods.
It was pretty huge, and we didn't see all of it, but here are some highlights:
As we reached the rest stop:
We realized we were minus one. I won't name her, but one of our members had gotten lost in the last area and hadn't caught up with us when we moved on. So, a search team was assembled and dispatched, while the rest of us waited in a shady little grove, and sang some songs, one of which was Shady Grove.
We located her eventually and continued on to the last stop of the Temple, a little tea house just outside:
We did a tea tasting with one of the staff:
Followed by, of course, an opportunity to buy something.
Lunch that afternoon was a good counterbalance to the Big Mac-a-thon of the other night, as it was at an all-vegetarian restaurant, with your typical faux meats in various sauces. Honestly it wasn't too different taste wise from many of the other meals we'd had.
Then it was on to our only festival-related activity for the day, a demonstration back at the middle school:
...there was also an area with a bunch of instruments.
The demonstration was pretty neat. The Cardinal Singers served as sort of a lab choir for Dr. Hatteberg who walked through much of our rehearsal process, the tuning system we use, why we don't work with piano, etc. We sang a few excerpts of pieces and sight read for the audience. We worked through a translator, of course, and for some reason there was a guy in a blue shirt in the front row who studies at the University of Oklahoma who was better able to translate certain musical terms when the translator drew a blank. So it was for the most part successful.
The rest of the night was free, and even though dinner was provided for us by the hotel, I and a few others who wanted just a brief moment of American food went across the street bridge to this fine establishment:
We got in, sat down, told the waiter our drink order, and got a blank stare. He left, and moments later, a waiter who I believe may have been the manager showed up to successfully take our order in English. We got Pepsi and cheese pizzas. Not fancy, but we had to go simple to make things work across the language divide.
And then it was the big day. The day of our feature concert. The morning would still be touristy, however - it was a big day for that as well.
First, we went to Tiananmen Square, site of the famous photo of a student standing front of a line of tanks in protest. We had no tanks on our visit, but it was incredibly smoggy, even by Beijing standards.
And, in the distance, the Forbidden City at last:
Something strange happened while we were standing there. A man, looked to be homeless, stepped into this plaza that was roped off and monitored by guards:
He was like trying to gather some papers or something, and the guards quickly escorted him away. Then the same thing happened with a woman moments later. I don't know what that was all about.
But anyway, we soon went in:
Hi Mao
And there was this crazy thing also:
Don't quite know what to make of it.
We then exited:
On the street that led us back to our bus, I saw a man with no arms and a man with one arm and horrible burns, if I'm remembering correctly. No, I did not take a picture of them. It was, to say the least, jarring.
We went back to the hotel and had a little time to rest up for the big night. Well, the basses and sopranos did. Altos and tenors had a sectional. But in any case, it was soon time for a dinner in our concert black:
Fance!
And then onto the hall, a new place we hadn't performed at yet.
Luckily, it had great acoustics.
We did a bit of warming up, getting used to the hall, and figuring out our positions for the whole concert, then went backstage to wait for our time to go on. I didn't feel tense or anxious; we had been preparing for this for months. I was ready.
Then it was time. We sang around half of our 90 minute program, took a short intermission, then returned to do the other half. We sang A Soldier's Mother's Lullaby yet again on that stage, and yet again I was entranced by it. That piece, which had been with us since Oregon, which had been with us in Chatanooga, was here now as well; the story of that year's Cardinal Singers is centered around that piece.
The audience loved us. If I'm remembering correctly, we did all three of our encores, including My Old Kentucky Home, which is for some odd reason a very popular tune in Beijing. A very old man who looked like a Chinese Ligeti and was apparently a professor of music in the city came to visit us backstage after the performance and told us how much he had enjoyed our rendition of it.
Backstage was also a time for feelings, which we all had a lot of. Those who were ending their tenure with the group with this concert were particularly moved, and you can understand why. The Cardinal Singers is one of those groups that inevitably becomes a family, and with each note, and every performance, we grow that much closer. I can't imagine how it will feel to sing my final chord when my time is done.
Back at the hotel, a spontaneous celebration was erupting principally among a choir from the Congo (never got it straight whether it was Republic of or DRC). They were chanting and singing in the lobby, inviting all passerbys to join in. So many of us did. I only managed to get a few blurry, out-of-focus photos of this grand event.
After changing, most everyone crammed into Lydia and Emily's room to continue our camaraderie. I was late, but it was easy to find the right room given the sheer amount of noise pouring out of it. One by one, the partygoers went off to bed, as did I before long.
After all, we had a big destination to get to in the morning.
