International Children's Day

June 1st is Children's Day here in China, as it in most of the non-American world. Because Sara started to attend the 幼儿园 you er yuan (Chinese kindergarten) for the spring semester, we knew that she would probably need to be involved in a program. Ellie was in a program at the same kindergarten a couple of years ago, and dressed up like a frog for her class. I remember that day being very hot with nowhere to sit and including a lot of speeches as are prevalent at all Chinese functions. Also that the sound system wasn't working. Anyway, this year I went with rather low expectations...


So you can see - Sara's class was dressed like soldiers. Well at least part of the class was. For some reason another part of the class got to be dancers... I'm a little worried that between dressing up like she is in the Red Army and all of us singing the Chinese national anthem together that we might have accidentally done something to lose our American citizenship. I guess we will find out next time we return to the US. (Which BTW is fairly soon, as we have just found out that Laurel's brother, James, is finally engaged and that his and Emily's wedding will be taking place in October. Congratulations James and Emily!)

The morning went about the same as last time, but at least we got there early to get a front row spot to watch from. Laurel was smart and had us bring our own folding stools this time. It didn't really help, though. Poor Ellie was almost crushed from all of the people trying to see. I didn't have room to unfold my chair, and Laurel's broke in the middle of the performance. My favorite part of attending these programs is watching the parents get so involved in taking pictures and video of their children that they actually are out in the middle of the stage area getting close-ups and struggling for the best picture taking spots. Parents are the same all over the world, I guess. At least if they have enough money to afford a digital camera...

I don't really know yet if Sara will be one for public performances. She didn't seem to get into it very much as her class marched on stage and pretended shooting their guns. But of course she is in the youngest class at the school, and none of the kids really looked like they wanted to be there. Some of them had to be forcefully drug kicking and crying to their teachers to perform. At other times Sara has definitely been the showgirl of the family. This particular day her favorite part was the snacks and yogurt.