only in China!!!

So I think everyone remembers the open ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, but what people don’t readily know is the opening ceremonies have long been a big tradition in China. Everything has an opening ceremony. Our soccer leagues have opening ceremonies. And these are leagues that are played every year at the same time. So we had the pleasure of sitting though an extravagant opening ceremony before our Wenshan Soccer game started. I will post pictures probably on Sunday as we had a professional photographer taking pictures, but I don’t get the pictures until Saturday. I mostly took video of the event. So we arrived at really nice tea house and sat down, but no tea was presented. All of the sudden soccer balls were being passed around for us to sign. We signed about twenty soccer balls in which we kicked out to the crowd. So we went from there to the soccer stadium at around 6:30pm. Notice I put the time. So we enter the stadium and there are camera crews setting up. We totally underestimated how big this event was, but we went down and put on our Brazilian uniforms (not my choice) and proceeded to take the field for a nice warm up. And you know what, it was the best warm up I had ever had in China. Usually, we just sort of kick the ball around and pass a little and stretch at your own accord, but we did drills and movement stretching and I felt warm and great and ready to play. Well, the game was supposed to start at 7:30. We warmed up for 45 minutes, and then we sat for an hour. Yup, you guessed it….OPENING CEREMONIES!!! Now, I am not saying that I didn’t enjoy it, but only in China. So they started at 7:40pm. We went over and sat down on the bench. Now, there were about five presentations going on at once during the first 30-40 minutes. There was a dragon show, motorcycle jumping, children practicing karate, the bicycle club, and kung fu presentation with swords and sticks and flips etc…. So after those were done. About 50-60 old people lined up on the field in their nice Tai Chi outfits to perform Tai Chi. Now, during this we are signing shirts and notebooks cause everyone wanted our autograph. WE WERE CELEBRITIES!!! So after the Tai Chi, then an adult martial arts presentation with swords went out on the field. It was pretty awesome. Well, apparently it was our turn to do a presentation. I bet you never would have thought that we were going to do a samba. Now, samba is brazilian, I think. But the problem was that they Brazilians that knew how do perform the samba were playing drums and singing. So that left me, and some Americans, and some French, and a Spaniard to perform the samba. WE DIDN’T. We just sort of moved back and forth and clapped. It was by far the most pathetic performance of the night. So we figured that it was time to start the game…….HAHAHAHAH, ya right! We hadn’t seen the local village dance yet. And then guess what was next…..Finally, the soccer game. Next post will be the game and after the game…..

PS. I took video of the events and not many pictures....that is why i am waiting for the professional photographs photos.