Call me SiMoN !!

Before, I'd mentioned about the dancing practice which kept me busy for quite some time, and all the hard work and sweat were all for that 2 hours performance (or less). So far as I could recall, I had my first stage dance when I was at the Chinese Language and Cultural College 华文学院 in conjunction to the Water Festival. Well, I won't be using much time briefing about the Water Festival, but it was fun and wet.

As for the dancing practice, we were "recruited" to perform during the GuangZhou International Tourism Expo at TianHe Stadium 天河体育馆. The organization we are in is called CT, abbreviation for Cultural Troupe in GuangZhou. It was sad to tell you guys about it, but we are actually the last Cultural Troupe representing Malaysia with truly Malaysians in China. The CT groups in Beijing and Shanghai had already been disbanded due to insufficient source of energy. In fact, the dancers for CTs in Beijing and Shanghai were actually China mainland students, instead of Malaysian students!! Wow, that is a really pathetic fact to be heard of. So, I guess we as the last surviving CT group, we have to struggle harder to maintain its survival. To be more realistic, we have to do so too because we will be able to maintain our alternative financial source as we will receive extra reward for each performance we performed (occasionally).

Back to my actual topic, the performance was on the 29-30th of November, accompanied by the cold and windy weather. I'll just neglect talking the training, as there were a lot of conflicts and misunderstanding throughout the training (a very common phenomena). I was actually confused about my feelings towards the performance. The mixture of nervousity and ecstasy confused me. I was nervous because that was my newbie experience for performing in front of the public and mass medias. I was ecstatic because I had the chance of training my guts dancing in front of so many people, with my friends.

My friend saw this in the newspaper regarding the Expo.

On the way to our so called "fitting-room"...

I like those balloons.

This is the stage. Try to zoom in the photo. Those dancers were barely wearing any clothes!! Woohooo!!
Here the "giant" booth I've mentioned just now.

The typical posters of Malaysia, with no other races except the Malays.

Empty...

This is our "fitting-room"...in the middle of the booth...

Jun Hao with his cosmetician (she's just our CT president)

Caren with the real cosmetician (our dancing Cikgu, he is really good with what he's doing)

Tiffiny!! It's so rare to see her with any make ups, but she was gorgeous anyway with it.

Me! Our president said that I didn't need any make up coz my skin was already fair enough. A compliment?

Tiffiny looked so different in this photo.

Notice the girl's emotion at the right.

Tiffiny with her Indian make up.

Qi Song wore his Sarawakian costume, and it was windy and cold, and...

...he was freezing as Iban's outfit was very simple and little.

It was very squeezy to change our costumes under the booth and we barely had any space to sit or squat. The lack of privacy was a serious issue because the visitors were holding cameras and some of those irresposible people took photos of those girls changing their costumes. Though the girls did their safety measure, those horny and lusty old man were too over with their action. Despise them.

Me in my Malay costume. Kind of suit me, but...
Me and Tiffiny~
4 Malay muskeeteers!

We 6 newbies in CT! Handsomes and beauties!

Honestly, I think those Malay costumes suited me quite fit, it is always weird for a Chinese to look good in Malay costume. This is not racial discrimination, but I don't think I will look good in Chinese costume. Kinda sad. But anyway, a lot of visitors asked Tiffiny to take photo with them and that was a great honour because I didn't see many of our other CT members being asked to take photo by any visitors. To my surprise, a lady approached me with her friend and asked me to take photo with her. Hehe. At least that was a good compliment and confirmation for myself.

Here's Tiffiny with a star-looking lady.

Lol, I looked stupid and stiff in this one. Shy mah!!

We were quite early before the performance, so we had our lunch there, provided by a Singaporean cuisin restaurant. The food was very Malaysian (Singapore and Malaysia same one lah) and it was actually our first time eating a very Malaysian style curry after being in China for almost 3 months. Curry in GuangZhou tasted very weirdly, not spicy enough. Besides curry, we had fried rice and friend noodles. We enjoyed the food so much, especially the curry.

This is the fried noodle. Fried noodle actually tasted better than fried rice.

This is the fried rice, but it tasted a bit different.

The whole exhibition lasted for two days, and we had two different sets of dance. The first package mainly consisted of Malay dances; the second package had more ethnic dances: Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban and more. Personally, I could remember the dancing steps for the first package clearer, but the second package was quite strange for me because I always forget the steps.

Me acting macho in Kadazan outfit! ^^

Iban and Kadazan.

Iban and Indian.

Wearing those costumes for the girls made them look fatter because the girls had to wear so many clothes at a time. Costumes and accessories for the girls were so much more complicating than the guys. The performance went on smoothly, with no technical problems, but I did a lot of mistakes during the dance. I forgot some steps, did some actions too fast, and many more. Embarrassing la! At least I admitted my mistakes. The only thing that really pissed me off is that some people when they did some mistakes, instead of admitting their mistakes, they talked about others' mistakes and complained why others didn't do so. By doing so, other people will not realize the mistakes that those particular people had made. Clever hoh.

Here's a short clip of our dancing. This is the package one dance.


This is the package two dance.


Two weeks of intensive training, two hours of performing. It was an unforgetable experience for a green guy like me, especially when it comes to performing on stage. When I came back from the stadium, I arranged all my costumes and took pictures of them. Enjoy!

The first Malay costume.

Second set of Malay outfit.

Kadazan outfit.

Last but not least, my Chinese costume.

That's all for today's post. While writing this post, I caught a flu and my nose became so stuffy that I could hardly breathe. The weather in GuangZhou right now is cool and windy, unlike Beijing which is freezing. I can just wear shorts and sleeveless T-shirt sometimes, but sometimes, I had to wear my thick jacket and looked like a dumpling.

Got to go to sleep now. Good night!

See ya!