A big deal in Tibet...
Today I know what it feels like to be a rock star.
Catherine, one of the interns from Appalachian State, and I went to the Beijing Convention Center to cover a tourism expo. It didn’t sound like a big deal but they wanted a video story, so I kinda had to go since the other videographer was working on something.
It started off like a normal convention. There were exhibitors from a bunch of Chinese provinces, several Asian countries and a few countries from Africa and Europe. I was walking around with the decrepit video camera provided by China.org when I happened upon a Chinese man playing a couple of hand instruments I’d never seen before. They looked kinda like little nunchuks but sounded like maracas. Anyway, I start to tape him while he’s just messing around with these little things. He sees me and just perks up and starts singing this little song. I didn’t need the footage but I kept taping because he looked so happy. He finished his song and did the polite bow and started tanking me profusely. It was kinda cool…
Then we rolled up to the booth for Lhasa, Tibet. Admittedly, the booth first caught my eye because they had some gorgeous women standing out front. We found out later that two of them will be competing for the Miss Asia pageant. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by Tibet’s director of tourism. He shook our hands about 476 times and kept telling us to visit Tibet and said he would be our tour guide and we could eat dinner at his house and pet his dog and borrow his car and all this – offered everything except his daughter’s hand in marriage. We talked for a long time, then he disappeared. Another guy, who looked so anxious to talk with us that I thought his eyes would burst, walked up and started to talk with us about where we were from and what we were doing in China. Then a nice lady started talking to us… it felt like a line was forming to speak to us.
Anyway, the tourism director came back with these white scarves called katas which he wrapped around our necks. I understand they’re a traditional gift for people who are leaving on a trip, which fits in with how convincing this guy was in trying to sell us on a vacation in Tibet.
Well now we’re kind of celebrities and everyone – everyone – starts coming up to say hello to us. There were about 15 or 20 people working at the booth and they all spoke English. They all wanted to take their picture with us. Another videographer who was doing a story on the expo started taping me taping stuff (awkward). A girl named Isabelle – it seems common for people to have an English equivalent for their name – came and introduced herself to us and really hit it off with Catherine. I, of course, kept trying to talk to the Miss Asia girls. The tourism guy kept walking off, then coming back just to shake our hands and say something funny.
They gave us books, shook our hands, shook our hands again, took our pictures, then shook our hands some more. They danced, they sang, talked to us about Tibet, then they shook our hands. Once I figure out how I can load pictures from China, I’ll post some of the photos because it was a really cool thing. One of my favorite experiences so far… I hope I get to go to Tibet while I’m here.
Catherine, one of the interns from Appalachian State, and I went to the Beijing Convention Center to cover a tourism expo. It didn’t sound like a big deal but they wanted a video story, so I kinda had to go since the other videographer was working on something.
It started off like a normal convention. There were exhibitors from a bunch of Chinese provinces, several Asian countries and a few countries from Africa and Europe. I was walking around with the decrepit video camera provided by China.org when I happened upon a Chinese man playing a couple of hand instruments I’d never seen before. They looked kinda like little nunchuks but sounded like maracas. Anyway, I start to tape him while he’s just messing around with these little things. He sees me and just perks up and starts singing this little song. I didn’t need the footage but I kept taping because he looked so happy. He finished his song and did the polite bow and started tanking me profusely. It was kinda cool…
Then we rolled up to the booth for Lhasa, Tibet. Admittedly, the booth first caught my eye because they had some gorgeous women standing out front. We found out later that two of them will be competing for the Miss Asia pageant. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by Tibet’s director of tourism. He shook our hands about 476 times and kept telling us to visit Tibet and said he would be our tour guide and we could eat dinner at his house and pet his dog and borrow his car and all this – offered everything except his daughter’s hand in marriage. We talked for a long time, then he disappeared. Another guy, who looked so anxious to talk with us that I thought his eyes would burst, walked up and started to talk with us about where we were from and what we were doing in China. Then a nice lady started talking to us… it felt like a line was forming to speak to us.
Anyway, the tourism director came back with these white scarves called katas which he wrapped around our necks. I understand they’re a traditional gift for people who are leaving on a trip, which fits in with how convincing this guy was in trying to sell us on a vacation in Tibet.
Well now we’re kind of celebrities and everyone – everyone – starts coming up to say hello to us. There were about 15 or 20 people working at the booth and they all spoke English. They all wanted to take their picture with us. Another videographer who was doing a story on the expo started taping me taping stuff (awkward). A girl named Isabelle – it seems common for people to have an English equivalent for their name – came and introduced herself to us and really hit it off with Catherine. I, of course, kept trying to talk to the Miss Asia girls. The tourism guy kept walking off, then coming back just to shake our hands and say something funny.
They gave us books, shook our hands, shook our hands again, took our pictures, then shook our hands some more. They danced, they sang, talked to us about Tibet, then they shook our hands. Once I figure out how I can load pictures from China, I’ll post some of the photos because it was a really cool thing. One of my favorite experiences so far… I hope I get to go to Tibet while I’m here.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home