Shengrong and I celebrated Chinese New Year with the folks from the Overseas Chinese Students’ Association. We made hot pot and dumplings (I say “we” because I was allowed to wrap a few dumplings) and sang Karaoke. Some of the dumplings were really good – Shengrong says they are best when freshly prepared, and they definitely beat the dumplings I’ve had on other occasions.
Karaoke was mostly in Chinese, though some people sang English songs. I did Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House”, which has very few lyrics. I got to play a lot of air guitar, and smashed my pretend instrument at the end.
The highlight of the night for me was the Korean science student trying to do magic tricks for Shengrong, who is possibly the worst audience-member ever.
Magician: “Choose a number on this six-sided die, and seal it in this container, with your chosen number facing up”.
(Shengrong chooses “one” and puts the die in the container).
(Magician gets her two blow on the container, puts it in a larger container, shakes it beside his ear, does all manner of “magical” preparations).
Magician: “Your number was… one!”
Shengrong: “No! You are wrong! That wasn’t my number! Why do you think I chose number one? You clearly can’t do magic!” etc.