My trio-debut: CHINA – TV – ART
It was something like a space flight, flying to another planet! The first time in China, the first experience in TV shooting, the first time in the vast world of so different and creative people!
This article is for my family, relatives, friends, and anyone who'll find it curious! Aaand: let's start, uhhh!!!
I'd like to begin this story with the most impressive - people whom I was surrounded by within that great week: too unusual and special, talented and hardworking, everyone with his own story and life path in such unusual for the "ordinary" reader fields, as for instance, dancing painter, magicians, figure skater on roller skates, girl juggling with her feet, air gymnasts, modern bandura player, modern opera singer, man tearing iron bucket instead of just a sheet of paper, and so many other original and even unknown for me genres.
Honestly, my favorite is dancing artist: Gena from Odessa, from our Ukrainian team of artists. People, this is the real BOMB!!! Within about 10 minutes he wrote a portrait of one of the jury members. The portrait was made on the black canvas with the golden sand. Simultaneously Gena was dancing, dancing on the greatest level to the beautiful and exciting music... Goosebumps... This is talent, this is show, this is professionalism, emotions, this is all!!!
A lot of the time I spent among magicians, sphere where I'm not even the novice ... just a little worse! :) My roommate was a girl from Riga (Latvia), who works as a magician - the only female magician I am acquainted with! So, when we made our first steps into the hotel room, I immediately asked if she could show me some tricks... :)
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| Jeanne is filming for the TV-project: here she shows tricks to the small chinese child :) |
It turns out that magicians got used to the fact that everyone, everywhere and everytime asks them for such an "entertainment." Partly, they even like it: good possibility to practice and perfect their skills with the audience. After watching tricks they'd showed us, I began to doubt that we adults are attentive enough... Their tricks made all of us speechless! Honestly! It was incomprehensible!
The next magician in my trip was Jenis (a man from Almaty city, Kazahstan). I asked him if he liked David Copperfield (question, which contained, unfortunately, all my knowledge about the world of magic). In response, I received a photograph of two people: him and Copperfield... Such things happen! And one day later I found out that Jenis was listed in the Guinness Book of records... Shock :)
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| On the photo: Jenis and... no, it is not Copperfield :) |
Very beautiful, extraordinary, incredible...
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| Lera is in the rose-colored closing:) |
... and writing, and writing, but the main fact is still abscent: Urumchi, National Talent-Show!
We took part in Chinese Talent-Show, taking place in Urumchi-city, that is situated in the Northwest part of the country. Urumchi is the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region with population of more than 3 million people. Great, as here is also a little coincidence: Urumchi has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most remote city from any sea in the world!
Two Guinness Book heroes in one story :)
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| Urumchi city: view from the 9th floor of our hotel |
The two main languages of the city are Chinese and Uighur, as Uighurs constitute the second largest resident layer after the Chinese. Interesting, but these two languages are totally different, they are not dialects. And very often the following situation takes place: the Uighur don't understand the Chinese, and vice versa, as education in China is "on the verge of fantasy". Perhaps, that is why many institutions and venues (shops, cafes etc.) give their named in two languages, that looks a bit funny for Europeans who know English-Russian-Ukrainian and a couple of other Western languages, as that "Chinese-Uighur translation" in no way helps to "navigate".
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| The name of the famous supermarket: English version, then Chinese, then Uighur |
The Chinese don't speak English. At all! They even don't understand meanings of the words «YES» and «NO». From time to time it made us upset, as without language knowledge it was impossible to travel (even within the city), to buy anything: 70% of the supermarket products are unknown objects with strange names. Speaking about markets, it is worth to mention that practically all the prices are written in characters, not numbers. There is a great lack of local interpreters who know English good enough in order to accompany tourists and visitors. More likely, the following situation will take place (the one we had): the Kazakhs who speak both Russian and Uighur helped us. Funny? :)
Our common (as it seemed to me before this trip :)) gestures are also not the same as their: the fist (which I usually understand as a threat) means "10" and, for example, when we collect our fingers leaving only the little finger and the big one - showing, as if we are speaking on the phone - in China it means "7" (if my memory doesn't fail).
After this trip I can also confirm that many countries enter the international market, and China is the country with a strong belief that it is not the one that should "go somewhere" but vice versa: other countries have to "enter China".
Doing business there is too specific: too long and complicated hierarchical structures, where to understand who is on the top is very difficult, sometimes even impossible, at the same time working "directly" is almost unreally.
Everything, absolutely everything I had previously only read about, is a pure truth, which we faced with, while working on the project. For example, personal communication, the principle of "war is war, and lunch has to be on time" are rules the number "1"...
And finally, some amazing photos.
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| "For those who are still not vegetarians". These are meat carcasses, sold outside between different cafes, souvenir shops and supermarkets. Funny :) |
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| Originally: manikin for "Pampers" :) |
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| Cafe with the funny name. Moreover, they have no coffee. Just a cat, who sits in the doorway :) |
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| Chinese breed of dog. I am also dreaming about the same one! :) |
As for me, I have four "YES" from Chinese judges and the semi-final in autumn! :)
