Im no Van Gogh!

About four weeks ago, Sandy asked all the foreign teachers if we would like to have some painting lessons. A chance to try our hand at Chinese culture, so to speak. Imagining drawing Chinese characters of some description, I was quite looking forward to the chance. When it transpired that I would be drawing a cabbage, with chillies around it, I was less than impressed. Given it is a very traditional vegetable in China, it’s not exactly what I enjoy painting for fun.

However, we now know that this is exactly the reason we were asked to learn to paint in the first place. Our school had entered us in a Province wide competition, representing the School, to show how much Chinese culture we had learnt so far during our stay. I was fuming. The plan was for Kristina to sing a Chinese song, something she is very capable of. At the same time, four of us were to draw our pictures and show them to the audience at the end of the song.

I can honestly say that I never imagined drawing a cabbage in front of an audience of approximately 100, accompanied by Kristina singing opera in my ear hole, with the pride of Sandy and the reputation of our school on the line. My painting was as shoddy as you can imagine, but to our surprise, our placing was not. We came home a very respectable second.

The next evening, all the entrants were invited to a Christmas party, with complimentary buffet and drinks. Half an hour in and our table was undoubtedly the most drunk, knocking back a shocking amount of free wine. We did ourselves proud. We were expected to repeat our performances for the benefit of the Mayor of Shijiazhuang, so I think it was lucky, given how drunk we all were, that Sandy sent us to a painting performance – without any paper. For once I was relieved by the lack of organisation in China.