ECE is the second of four cultural evenings this year, and follows in the footsteps of the African cultural evening that I previously blogged about. Everyone had high expectations, considering the success of the last event, and I was really looking forward to the week, especially the Saturday events. The cultural festivities started off on the preceding Sunday with the Viking games, a series of water based competitions with little ties to the Vikings other than the random Scandinavian electro music in the background, and the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish students that hosted the event. The water may have been cold by Hong Kong standards, but frankly was warmer than the summer temperatures at the Northville swim club. On kind of a sidenote, the weather has been getting colder here (down to a frigid 65 degrees), and as a result many of the students have been wearing jeans and sweatshirts. I was wearing my usual shorts and a t-shirt one day, and someone asked me how I wasn't cold. I may not be cold now, but it will be a hard transition to return to an actual winter in Michigan. Back to the pool games, each block at the school was represented by a team of 6, and along the way, I volunteered for my block, 1. After 3 rounds of water polo, chicken fights, and a pool chair relay, our block won (despite the claims of block 2 that we somehow cheated in water polo), and we were given some European chocolate.
The rest of the week, other activities occurred, including Dutch games, which I ended up missing, pierogie making for Polish independence day, a discussion on European immigration policy, and the French can-can. In preparation for the cultural performance, the Europeans encouraged people from other cultures to join the dances, and somehow I ended up in the group doing the can-can. We may have rehearsed several times that week, but my skills, and the groups as a whole were severely lacking. The only times when we kicked high enough was when we accidentally kicked each other.
On Saturday, everyone at school was very excited for the dinner/play/and dance that evening. Before all the fun, I started the day with homework and volunteering. I volunteered at an international school, CIS, raising money for a Cambodian shelter for girls recovering from child sex trafficking, selling friendship bracelets made by the girls at the shelter that my school works with, and that I will be visiting next spring. Over several hours, we raised roughly $600 US dollars, which will definitely help the children through the charity AFESIP. Furthering on this topic of human trafficking, next weekend is the annual 24 Hour Race, a race around Victoria Peak raising funds to combat modern day slavery. This year, teams from high schools all around Hong Kong will be running a relay, including two teams for my school. While I will not be competing, I'll be volunteering for the race organizers, and for team motivation. Next weekend will be much fun, but back to the festivities of Saturday...
Intense European decoration session
Before dinner
The night started with a dinner with food from all around Europe. The food was very good, even the British food, the decorations were nice, the music was classy, and everyone looked nice in formal clothes. All of a sudden, two students walked in, and wedding music played, and the theme of the night was announced, a royal wedding. As a result, a fake wedding was staged between a Spanish girl, Miren and a Norwegian guy, Brage. After dinner, everyone walked upstairs, took plenty of pictures, then went to the show.
The Royal Family
The show was based around the honeymoon of Miren and Brage, as they traveled around Europe. Full of dances, cultural jokes, and other performances, ECE was hilarious throughout the entire show. Even while some of the dances weren't particularly great (cough, cough can-can), they were bad enough that they turned out funny. As the "honeymoon" concluded, everyone congratulated the Europeans on all their hard work planning, rehearsing, and cooking, and we all went off to the "royal masquerade ball". Not really. That was the description on the invitations to the dance; however, us cheap high-schoolers couldn't afford masks, and we all changed out of formal clothes. It was still lots of fun though, and we stayed at the party for the next few hours.
Non Europeans after the show
On Sunday, reality sunk in, and I had to go back to all my homework and preparations for another busy week ahead. I'm really looking forward to the 24 Hour Race now, and I also can't believe that in less than a month, I'll be back visiting my other high school. Anyways, I have to go now to filming and editing club; I'm definitely staying busy every day here!
By the way, here is the link to the events photo album https://drive.google.com/a/lpcuwc.edu.hk/?usp=chrome_app#folders/0B9ho4aApZB8FcWFOMndtVWdOcTQ
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