A Christmas show and hot chocolate

Christmas is fast approaching and although no-one over here really celebrates it; the shops have all put up decorations and plastic trees and cashiers have donned their Santa hats. Shane schools have taken down the bats and broomsticks to make way for snowflakes and smiling santas. The weather is now cool enough to wear a blanket at night and a jacket to work, but it still doesn't feel very festive.
In an effort to make us feel more Chrimassy, Linda (boss) decided to put on a Christmas show for the kids and parents. We were told about this before i went to Thailand. There would be songs and sketches by the Changhua students and teachers; there would be a dance by our Yuanlin TAs and then we would have a 5 minute slot for the Yuanlin teachers to do a sketch or something. Well for two weeks we threw ideas around the staffroom. Do a comedy sketch dressed as girls, students, monkeys; a pie throwing contest, a talentless singing competition...Andre even suggested doing the full monty. but everything we came up with had either been done before or the humour would be lost in translation. Meanwhile the TAs had put together a fantastic dance routine and were rehearsing daily.
The weekend before the show and getting desperate we bought some whisky and a copy of The Full Monty and came back to our house. By 4:30 in the morning we had a dance (well syncronised movement) thanks mainly to Tim for the first two minutes of the tune 'You can leave your hat on.' What we didn't have were costumes, music and time. On Sunday we finalised our dance and went into to town to buy some outfits. Obviously we weren't going to be doing the 'full' monty as kids would be watching. We had hoped to be wearing gorilla outfits underneath; but we couldnt find four big enough. So we resorted to buying skirts and frilly tops (less than a fiver). A foriegner in Yuanlin gets stared at enough; but when 4 blokes buy womens clothes together... well! We'd have got away with it, had Nick not come out of the changing rooms still wearing his pink skirt. The next five days were a little stressful. Between teaching, marking four sets of exams and doing 2 presentations; I was stitching up velcro patches on my trousers, burning CDs and practicing the routine.
It got to the night before the show. First time in full dress (so to speak): jacket, tie, shirt, T-shirt, girlie top, trousers, skirt and school hat. We went through the routine and to our relief the velcro worked... it was then that Pascal announced that no-one had ever done this before at a show, he wasn't quite sure how the audience would react to us stripping. So far we hadn't told anybody about what we were doing. Was this to be the end of our careers?
On Saturday, we drove down to the theatre after some last minute adjustments. Pascal had led us to believe that it was a 1000-seater city hall type building. But when we arrived we were a little shocked to find it a cosy little temple style building with only 300 seats. A little too personal for what we were planning.
As we looked round at all the little kiddies with their respectable parents, we wondered: What are we doing! Whose idea was this? Then we remembered; it was Andre's - and he's on holiday in South Africa. Pants! A few of the Changhua teachers tried to guess what we were doing. A few came close but only jokingly "I'm not gonna here Hot Chocolate am I?" said Dave.


The show started promptly and row on row of students went past in their Christmas costumes. Christmas! We should have had santa outfits underneath! Idiot! Ah well, too late now. We were told to get changed. The cubical was small and very hot... I was just about to come out, when i remembered I'd not put my skirt on. Another ten minutes undoing velcro and reattaching... i was sweating like mad. I walked carefully past the line of kids praying that none of them pulled on my trousers.
We got our que and walked out past a line of beeming TAs.
The audience was silent... the odd titter about our school hats... and then there was a lifetime waiting for the music to start. For the first few bars we were pretty convinced that it was over... but then some angel started clapping..and before long everyone was loving it. Stu was at the front snapping away and Linda's husband had a video camera running... it was like being back at manchester. When we got to the final fling; my trousers went a little further than expected... but a nice lady brought them back to the stage. The lights didn't go out as expected so we bid everyone merry christmas, gathered any clothes we could find and scuttled off back stage.
The TAs dance went like clockwork... made our strip look tame: it's not surprising that Linda has the most successful school in Taiwan. What father wouldnt want to go to a show with 20 young ladies jumping around the stage in leotards? Very sly!
It was very nearly the highlight of the show; but that title was stolen by Dave's three musketeers at the end... who were just superb: comic genius, confident kids and snazzy outfits.
The whole evening went down very well so Linda treated us to a meal at The Temple restaurant. Ross's (Ch teacher) parents were in Taiwan and had watched the show. They joined us for the meal. I think they were surprised how much we could all eat. The food just kept coming in Taiwanese fashion; and I kept eating. The rotating table made things more exciting: looking around I noticed that everyone's table manners had declined somewhat since being out here.


Afterwards; most of us went on to Bono's bar for some celebratory drinks and pool (Gemma, Jena, Sharne, Pas, Rob, Andy, Nick).