Cotton-Eyed Joe

(My pictures are at home, and I don't get to use the internet much at home, so still no pictures yet of the trip, but here's what happened today)

 

A few weeks ago, if you heard, the four of us English teachers were asked to "perform" something for Teacher Appreciation Day. After stressing for a while, knowing that we didn't know how to dance or sing or play any of the instruments they have here, we finally decided on Cotton Eyed Joe. This went over really well next to the Kung Fu performance and the incredible sing/dance routines that we heard some teachers had stayed up all night rehearsing. (that was sarcasm, just in case you missed it!)

Well, apparently they actually liked Cotton Eyed Joe. And the gym teacher (or somebody with power) decided the entire school should learn it. Long story short, every day for the past few weeks we've been asked to go outside during the schools "recess" time (it's not really recess, more of a midmorning workout from 9:50-10:20 every day) and dance with the kids on the field. Just with the 7th and 8th graders.

Today, they informed us that they wanted to take pictures and film our dance. So we went out on the field and they had us stand with the kids instead of in the bleachers above them. And they played the song and we danced. About halfway through the song, the gym teacher got on the loud speaker and said something in Chinese (while we were all still dancing). Then, suddenly, the next time we went to turn, all the kids turned the opposite direction! The kids were doing the same dance but in exactly the opposite direction with the opposite hand and opposite feet! This totally threw us off and we looked like we didn't know the dance at all for the last half of the song. After that is when Daisy decided to inform us that the school wanted the kids to get an "equal" workout so they switched directions half way through to use all of their muscles. Yeah, thanks for informing us.

Well, we ended up having to do the dance a few more times and we eventually got the hang of it. But seriously, you try doing the Cotton Eyed Joe backwards and see how easy it is! I'll give you a hint... it's not!

It does feel really, really cool though to go out and dance with over 300 kids doing the same dance that you taught them. They did it pretty well, too.