Twenty Somethings

"We didn't need a story

We didn't need a real world

We just had to keep walking, and

We became the stories 

We became the places 

We were the lights, the deserts, the faraway worlds

We were you before you even existed"

Enzo

All Creatures Great and Small

Spring is the wet season in Hong Kong. That means if it's not raining when I walk outside then it feels like I'm walking into an exhale––hot and heavy.* It also means lots of new life.

The trees outside are getting greener and occasionally explode into Skittle-colored blossoms, the campus lawn needs a haircut, the birds and cicadas are double forte, and the frogs at night chirp in the drains where it all goes down. The wet season brings all kinds of new life outside, and inside too.

My apartment has its own ecosystem. I've dealt with the ants all year, and by "dealt with" I mean, "lived with."The ants feed off crumbs and bits of detritus and spend most of their time on the floor. They're small, tasteless, harmless and have yet to ruin any food source in my cupboards. I have seen a couple of bigger ants recently though. They're grey gnarly looking suckers, warrior ants. Three or four times the size of the little browns, and much faster. Along with the ants are the lizards. They're small, half the length of a pen and about an inch wide toe to toe. I'm not sure what they eat, but they spend most of their time on canopy of the high walls. Besides the lizards, the most recent visitor brought in by the wet season are cockroaches. The first one I saw was lying on his back in the middle of my living room. I thought he was dead, until I touched him. They're the size of a quarter, squeezed on the sides. For a while, I kept finding one at a time. I'd scoop the quick-witted little scraper into a tupperware and throw him outside into the bushes––catch and release. About the third time, I began suspecting I had a repeat offender on my hands. The next time, I decided to not release him. My plan was to keep him in his plastic prison for a week, putting punitive punishment to the test. Well, he didn't make it. Not even a week. What kind of a cockroach can't live a week? One morning I found him on his back. Maybe he fell over and decided to call it quits. In the meantime, another one of his cohorts showed up in my trash can, so my theory that there was only one didn't hold up.

Of all the creatures great and small living in my apartment, the one I hate the most is mold. Nothing is safe. Clothes, pillows, walls, coats, computer cases, basketballs, and food have all fallen victim to this silent grower. We'll see who gets the last laugh after I recruit a few Chinese chemicals to my side.



* The exhale idea was introduced to me by the History teacher.

The Making Of

We started at 7:00 Saturday night. After an hour of trouble shooting, the computer was recording sound through the board. It was full tilt from there. We finished around 4:00 Sunday morning.

The small recording room, is the sound closet at the back of the multi-purpose room in the dorm. It was stuffy, but produced a relatively good sound. We cleared out several boxes of unused Sabbath School quarterlies to make space for our gear.

Eddie, the percussionist, teaches gym and coordinates student activities here at the school.

Jeriel, the ukulele champion, is a graphic designer in Hong Kong; his parents work at the school.

The song is a younger brother of "Hooky Chookie Too." It flows from the watersheds of aggressive discourse and hope. An underlying pulse to the song itself is the belief that, "It's not about revenge, it's about redemption."

The production name, Sow My Low, plays with the sound of the noun in Cantonese: 收買佬 (sau mai lou). It means collector, and refers to men who are something like pawn shop owners in the States, collecting old stuff and selling it. It's also the name of a game known in English as "junk scramble." 

Into The Woods

Over the last two nights the school performed it's annual spring musical. This year, the students performed "Into the Woods Junior." Since I have been teaching drama this year, I was automatically elected to Assistant Director for the production. I've never been a part of a musical before, but thankfully the director Arlene was a veteran, and knew how to handle the project. Her leadership, and a boat-load of work from the cast, delivered a top-notch school musical that made Glee look like ... well, Glee. 


Here is a brief introduction to the show that was read to the audience at the beginning of the program by the Assistant Director:

Good evening and welcome to Hong Kong Adventist College. Before we begin, I’d like to say a few things about this year’s musical production. 

This evening’s performance is the result of thousands of hours of work. This work includes the time put into each actor’s performance, the set design, the lighting and sound, and even the neatly organized chairs you’re sitting on. Since auditions in late January, students have been memorizing, practicing, painting, paper macheting, practicing, prepping costumes, preparing pamphlets, and practicing some more. This year’s exquisite set design was creatively crafted by several members of the cast. As you will soon see, it is authentic, and ecologically minded, constructed with the right amount of vision and a lot of recycled newspaper. The students here at our school, from primary, through secondary, to college, have rallied behind this production to create something fresh, funny, and inspiring for you this evening. 

The musical our students will be preforming tonight is “Into the Woods Junior,” a shortened version of the award winning Broadway musical “Into the Woods,” written by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim. The story carefully, and at times playfully, examines what it really means to live “Happy Ever After.” Using notable characters from famous Western fairytales such as Jack, from Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapanzul, Cinderalla, and of course, a crusty old witch, the musical invites us to consider what we really need in order to be happy: a child, family, youth, beauty, money, friends, honor? 

Wishing for these things and more, our characters soon realize that the only path to their ‘happy ever after’ takes them on “a dangerous endeavor” into the woods. That dark uncertain place where “witches wolves and ghosts appear,” where trees are more than just wood and the boundaries between life and death are blurred. 

Some of the elements of this production involve spirits and ghosts, which are not in exact harmony with what Seventh-day Adventist Christians believe and teach. Although these things don’t accurately represent our understanding of reality, they act as important plot devices within the musical. And even though some of the elements are not in agreement with our beliefs, there is a strong underlying principle of faith throughout the musical. Even when the wolf is on the prowl, and the obstacles seem impassible, our characters continue on their journey with the trust that somehow, working together, in the end, all things will be ‘happy ever after.’ 

It is this faith that carries the cast, and us, into a life and death adventure. So without further ado, I ask you to turn off, or silence, any electronic devices and toddlers you have with you, ready yourself in your chair and join us as we venture Into the Woods. 

____________________

To see the students work together in order to produce something magical was really exciting, like watching Paddy McCoy get ordained, but with more singing and dancing.

After the show everyone scrambles to take photographs.

The set, stage right. 

"I want a picture too,"she said as she ran up the risers.