Only in China. On Sunday evening, our very cute Chinese friend Sherry invited us to dinner and then to attend a Chinese Idol-style singing competition at the Sichuan Normal University put on by New Channel English Language training school where she also works. After a wonderful dinner with 6 dishes for only $5 (and it was delicious) we wandered along the street. Sherry also likes to look at shoes and so we stopped at a little shop by the restaurant. We each found a beautiful pair for less than $10.
Our friend Sherry at the drumset on stage at Sichuan Normal University where she went to school and we attended the English Song Contest.
Then we headed over to the auditorium at the university for the English song contest. Unfortunately a few of the other judges failed to arrive and as native English speakers we were asked by Sherry's boss Mr. Melody Yan to be judges too. He asked us to focus on their use of the English language and to be positive. It was alot of fun. We had a chuckle when Sherry told us his name and she said "it's a girl's name isn't it". He said he was given this name because his Chinese name means "melody" so people thought it would be appropriate to call him the same name to simplify things, not realizing it was really a western girls name that gets lots of giggles. We had a great suggestion for him--shorten his name to "Mel" and then it would be a guys name. I think that he liked this.
After some final instructions the contest began. It was quite fun and we could actually understand most of the words. There were clearly some wonderful singers. One gal was so unassuming and then she got up and belted out her amazing song--wow I think this is another Susan Boyle. Where are you Simon Cowell? This gal has incredible singing talent with a very beautiful and strong voice doing some very very fancy musical twists and turns,--even her English was excellent. She was the clear cut winner--and I think that she would win even on American Idol. When she stood on stage to sing and opened her mouth singing we truly were all flabbergasted because she was so good!!!! I wish I could be her agent as she should be recorded she is so good and everyone in China has to learn english now.
There were also some other great singers-- so good it was hard picking our 2nd and 3rd place runner ups. For 2nd place we finally agreed on a lovely folk singer with a very sweet presence, rather like Nana Mousskouri.
In 3rd place we picked the most charming and adorable gal from Tibet although Kelsey was pushing hard for another great gal and a different solo fellow was wonderful too--such difficult choices!
I suggested to Sherry that she speak with the school's head to see if he can arrange to have a record company producer attend the final contest. Or maybe their school could make their own album used to promote English language learning. On April 23rd all of the previous 4 weeks winners compete for the final big prize of 10,000 yuan which is over $1,000.
Another Strong Competitor
The winners of the singing contest.
RSS Feed