We started the night with the whole group going to a local Cantonese restaurant. We were curious about Cantonese after eating Chinese the whole trip. Dr. Li gave a long description of Cantonese cuisine that ended up being essentially “Old People food”. It was Old people food, but very good old people food. Lots of meat, very soft, and kind of bland.
Next was the event for the night: A Chinese Acrobatic show. Over all absolutely astonishing. Acts included leaping through hoops, extreme hula hooping, spinning plates, and a clown. The clown was funnier than expected and included audience participation. Of course, the participation came almost exclusively from the loud group of American college students. One of our guides had preplanned this so that we would all get a specific kid to go up. The act is the clown sets up his side kick to hold balloons to throw darts at, of course the kid doesn’t want to do it so eventually the get a “volunteer”. Finally, they turn the volunteer around with a balloon in each hand and on their head for the clown to throw at. On the count of three the side kick runs up and pops them by hand without the volunteer realizing it. One of the girls in my group gets picked and is absolutely shaking the entire time. The second clown act was putting four guys into a human table which included the shortest guy and the largest guy from among us. It was a great time watching them fall apart.
The audience was very interesting. Most of them appeared to be tourists, and they were very loud. People talked near non-stop, only talking breaks for the best parts of the show. Also, nearly the entire audience walked out during bows following their tour guides. This seemed extremely rude to us but these people did not seem to care.
Afterwards we were presented with the choice, take the bus back or walk back the kilometers and exploring the city center. So of course, Cat, Dave, and I decided to walk back. They were so very confident in which way to go so I followed. We had a great time exploring, seeing all of the bright lights and feeling out the new city. We had walked quite a while so we checked a map to see which direction to go only to find out we were three kilometers away! We got our first taxi of the trip back. We tried to wave down a few only to find out that you have to stand near a taxi sign to get any. The taxi only cost 27 yuan or 5 dollars. The taxi ride was fairly similar to American taxi’s just cheaper and we were able to sit in the front seat.