On Friday night, I attended the annual variety show that upperclassmen at Henan University of Technology perform for the freshmen. It included singing, dancing, comedy and dramatic skits, classical music and a fashion show, all introduced by formally attired male and female hosts. It was like a combination of a Broadway musical, “The Ed Sullivan Show,’’ a rock concert, a Carnegie Hall recital and “Dancing with the Stars.’’
The students performed on a huge stage outfitted with klieg lights and booming speakers. The two-hour show drew a standing-room only crowd of several thousand cheering students on a cool night in Zhengzhou. I was lucky enough to get a seat in the VIP section at the front, where I sat next to the show’s director, who is the head of student affairs at the university. He told me that it took a month to put the whole thing together, which didn’t seem like much time given the scale of the undertaking.
At the end of the show, I was invited onstage for a group photo with the cast. It was my closest brush with showbiz celebrity since I was an extra in “The Exorcist.’’ (No, I did not play Satan.)
I took some videos and edited them into a montage, which I’ve posted here. I had to break them into three parts because of uploading issues. The first two parts are better than the third, so think of it as my version of “The Godfather” trilogy.
