Today is our last of six shows in Chongqing, China. This has been a relatively short stop on our tour and I haven’t had much time to really explore and get to know the area. Between load-in, recovering, a double-show on Saturday and load-out tonight, I had just a couple mornings here. Chongqing is a lot like Chengdu, only hillier and more dirty. I spent an afternoon walking around yesterday with Nicole and we found a nice noodle-bowl restaurant for dinner and then came upon a bootleg DVD store. Chinese manufacturers print DVDs to be sold in the US by filling orders for US movie studios. More often than not, they print more discs than the order was for. These extra discs find their way to these (quite literal) hole-in-the-wall places. Nicole and I bought 14 discs each (I picked up the complete Band of Brothers, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Good Will Hunting and There Will be Blood) for a total of $20. I will be on the lookout for more of these places in future cities… this could turn into a dangerous addiction.

We fly to Wuhan tomorrow afternoon and load-in Wednesday night and all day Thursday. We open Friday and stay in Wuhan for over a week! We even have a WHOLE DAY OFF (next Monday) — can you tell I’m excited?

So I’ve been trying to stay in the loop with news in the US, particularly politics and the Democratic Primaries, but I keep reading about Olympic protests and many people making a move to boycott the upcoming Beijing Olympics due to the questionable Chinese attitude toward Tibet.

China is not a Communist country — it is a Communist government. The people I have met over here have been nothing but curiously interested in other cultures (namely, mine) and represent absolutely no harsh feelings toward Tibet. Boycotting an international gathering of cultures is not the way to show protest — use trade sanctions for that. If the US were to end up skipping the 2008 games, we would only be doing a disservice to ourselves, to the Chinese people and to the rest of the world. There is so much more to be gained.

Sorry for the delay in postings… Putting up a show is a long, tiring process. But here goes anyways.

After living in Chengdu for the better part of three weeks now, I’ve made a few observations about life in China. It sure is a different world over here:

Laundry is really, really expensive to do. When sending things out to be cleaned, you must itemize a list of everything you send, each with their own cost — pair of socks: $1 (adjusted to US Dollars), t-shrits: $1.25, pants: $2, underwear: $1. Since I have no desire to pay $50 for 2 weeks worth of clothes, I took on an adventure this afternoon of washing all my socks and underwear in my bathtub with detergent I bought at the Chinese “Walmart”, Carrefour and drying it on a piece of clothesline hung in my bathroom. We’ll see how that goes over with the cleaning staff.

Dining is a daily adventure. The usual story is like this. We all sit down, they bring hot water, one drink menu and one food menu per table. Then the waiter stands there and waits for you to look at both menus and place your order. Items come out whenever they are done, regardless of any sort of order normally associated with dining — drinks may come after your entree, which may or may not come before your appetizer. No one at the table ever gets their food at the same time — so no one waits for the whole table to be served (manners be damned!). You usually have to ask for the check (a simple check mark motion on an open hand will do the trick) and then dig up your money to pay — no tax, no tip, no problem.

Shopping comes in one of two flavors: static or dynamic price. Some places, mainly anywhere that’s a real store, has price tags affixed to every item. You pay what the tag says. Other shops (stalls, rather) play “the negotiating game” where you ask the price, offer 25-30% of the first offer, haggle for a little bit, start walking away, then end up paying 50-60% of the initial offer. I scored a knock-off Cartier watch for $30 US.

Walking about town is always crazy. The streets are packed with cabs, busses, mopeds, bikes and pedestrians. Everyone seems only to be out for themselves and traffic lights are merely a suggestion. The only saving grace is the safety in numbers of crossing busy intersections on foot — just stay with the 100 other people attempting to cross at that time and your chances of being run over are pretty slim. Cab rides are cheap — they start with a minimum of $0.80 and go up from there. The drivers weave in and out of traffic at a breakneck pace. I am amazed that there aren’t more accidents than there are.

Musical theatre is a novel concept to most of our audiences. They clap along, sing when they know the words and generally behave like they are watching a movie in their own living room. Cell phones stay on. Conversations don’t stop. “No flash photography” is just a suggestion. It sure has been fun to play to some big houses and to hear some great reactions, even if they occur throughout the entire show.

That’s it for now… check out my facebook photos so far.