Jackie Chan

Sometimes my mind will get a little caught up in the strangeness of the chinese view towards westerners. It helps though to pretend that you are living in america, and big purple polka dot people start showing up in the library, and the grocery store, and every now and then you see one on the bus. Also these purple people speak to each other in a language based on a subject that you have been forced to study but that most people have never used in their daily lives, like trigonometry. And these purple people have sweet laser guitars and are inexplicably cool.

So when i get driven to places to get treated for gigantic weirdness festivals, it helps to imagine myself big, and blue, and screaming "Co-oo-oo-Secant!" into my microphone tentacle that springs out of my back. Otherwise it seems just crazy to make such a big deal over the white people.

Since the olympics, a new sport has developed in china of "bizarro spectacle competitions." Every city seems to be trying to prove its abilty to have brain destroying craziness shows just like the opening of the olympics. Here was guangzhou's attempt (the judges ruled it an 8.6).

Everything that could be made to light up or explode did so accordingly, and if the people could gyrate they made sure they were giving the gyrations of a lifetime.

While the extravaganza in the front was going on, our attention was breifly focused on the backstage where a guy instantanouelsy burst into flames and began running around. I guess he was okay, no one really seemed to mind. Perhaps it is possible to over-gyrate.

This is where i think the guy meant to activate his explosion stick.

Of course the night was topped off with a special arrival of JACKIE CHAN and friends! He drove onto stage in his own little 747 in the background and sang us a song about how he was ready. Ready for what? I don't know, but apparently not ready enough to give us a freakin karate chop or anything, just ready to sing and sing.
(He is the tiny dot in white above the second creepy talking hand from the left)

A closer view of jackie chan's anthropomorphic face hands (his friends?)

Here was a group of kids walloping each other with big branches from trees. I snapped a quick pic before we left. They were having an incredible time.