Emily's Big Show

Ningbo city puts on an International Fashion Exposition each year.  This is a garment city and this expo is used to promote the cities garment manufacturers to international buyers.  It is a 3 day event and it is kicked off with an evening concert.  Well... it's an international expo so this year the promoters decided to come to the international school Emily goes to get some foreign kids to... ah... foreign up the thing.   The international students along with local Chinese students were asked to sing a song as the opening act of the show and at the close of the show.  Cool!

We meet on Saturdays at a dance studio for two weeks before the show.
It was mostly choreography that they practiced.

On the  big day we arrived early for practice before the show.  That's "Co Co" out there singing for  a sound check.  We had no idea who she was but let me tell you she is a big deal to Chinese people.  She does have a good voice but I find her lyrics to be a little shallow.  That's a joke by the way... She sings in Mandarin of course.  We had no idea what she was singing.
We also saw "Li Bing Bing"
Yeah Baby!!  Now we're talk'in star power.

This is where Emily entered on to the stage.  The children entered from 5 different directions. Below Emily is out on stage practicing. Why is she looking at me!!  She should be listening to the director who is jabbering away in Chinese.

The children practiced until dusk....

Then it was off to the waiting area.

 
What!! 
They call THIS a waiting area!  Where's the banquette table?  Where are the cushy sofas?  Where are the other stars....  and the groupies.

No.  Just an area of the stadium with a boxing ring in it.  They did bring us food!

Emily hob-nobs with some of the local celebs.

Oh darling... you look marvelous..  love ya!!

 One of the Emily's school mates.  Rahgav is from India.
He thinks he's pretty hot stuff.  He is a nice kid.

Emily's friend Andrew and his mum Jeannine.   Jeannine is Emily's teacher.  They are from Darwin, Australia.

Here's Emily just before we go out to the stage.  Now we are all excited.

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!!!!!
A picture from backstage.
There are 20,000 people out there.

Waiting to go on stage... (neither of these girls is Emily)

A picture of Emily just before she goes out...

Click here to see a video clip of what happened next. Click here to see another interesting clip.  (If your internet connection is slow, the 1st clip  may be worth the wait -- skip this one).

These two children are both in Emily's class.  They stuck them right out in front.  Ummm...  That's like a 40 foot tall screen. They just loved Julie, a little French girl.  She's so cute and internationalie.   ("internationalie" - It's a word!! )

After the children came off stage we were allowed to just roam around the stadium.  We needed to stay because they would go out again at the end of the show.  We went out on to the field to watch some of the show.  I think that is "Li Bing Bing" out there.

Here's Kelly parading around with Julie on her shoulders. Oh...  Why yes.. I'm a close personal friend of Julie's.  Is that champagne?  Why yes, I'd love some.

We waited around in the stadium and back in the waiting area for the closing performance.  The kids were pretty tired by then but they did fine.  And that's it.  Emily got her 10 minuets of fame and we all had a great time!  We are hoping to get a copy of the performance for posterity sake, but will just have to wait and see!