Since each child is supposed to pair up with a parent, I persuaded ND to take on the task of teaming up with Caleb while Sarah teamed up with me. ND's initial reaction was "Cannot lah..." It's exams period for him and he's extremely stressed up. But when ND heard me talking to the kids about the competition a few days later, somehow he changed his mind. Despite all his assignment deadlines and the stress of schoolwork that he was facing, he agreed to team up with Caleb. His only condition was that he was really busy so I had to take care of all the ground work. So I chose the story, practised with Caleb, went with him for his rehearsal, prepared the props and just briefed ND the day before on what he had to say and act. (Thank you Daddy! I know you love us all very much and Caleb definitely appreciates the time u set aside for him )
Here's the performace that ND and Caleb put up today. Despite the little practise that they had together, I thought that they did an excellent job as a team. They were both very animated and provided lots of comic relief to the audience.(ND has got the "performing" genes and Caleb's really a chip of the old block.)
The story that Caleb told was 狮子的肚子饿了. It's a story about a hungry lion and his animal friends. I was so eager to watch them on stage that I missed out recording the intro of their story.
Don't you think they did well? Caleb was the 2nd last to go on stage to tell his story. The last candidate to go on stage was his classmate. She's from China and she was extremely fluent in delivering her story and her story was much longer and quite interesting. So my initial assessment was that I think Caleb did quite well but she'll probably come in 1st coz her Chinese standard's really way above the other children. I thought Caleb would have a chance for 2nd place.
Sarah on the other hand, had cold feet when she saw the huge audience that she had to perform to. We went onto the stage together but she was just willing to smile at everybody and she wanted me to do all the talking. I tried to persuade her to say her lines but she started looking more and more distressed so we left the stage without telling our story. My daughter's very much like me and I can understand the stage fright that she experienced. I used to get butterflies in my stomach whenever I had to go on stage as a child. See, I wouldn't even have signed up for the storytelling competition on my own accord, if not for the sake of encouraging my kids and giving them some exposure. (Ha... I told ND that it was a big sacrifice on my part to sign up for the competition coz I was stressed about the story, worried about whether my kids can deliver their lines especially when they can't speak Mandarin fluently, worried about the props and worried about whether Sarah would act up on stage!)
When the results of the competition was out, we were pleasantly surprised to see that other than the top 3 prizes, they were also giving out consolation prizes to the children who participated. They explained that it was a form of encouragement to them for being brave enough to attempt to perform in front of so many people on stage.
So that's me and Sarah on stage receiving our consolation prize!
And then we waited in anticipation for Caleb's results. All the other prizes were given out except 1st and 2nd for the K2 category. The principal asked the audience who they thought was 2nd and surprisingly they all shouted Caleb's classmates name. And indeed, surprise surprise, Caleb actually came in 1st! I thought it was really a great achievement for him and naturally he was really very excited and kept saying "Mummy, this is my first trophy!!!" (Ya, hopefully there's many more to go... haha)
Here's the kids on the way home after lunch. They were all exhausted by the story telling competition.
And here's the champion for our chinese story telling competiton!
As for Sarah, even though she didn't tell her story on stage, looking at her performance when we rehearsed at home, we all thought that she stood a chance to come in first for the Nursery category if she had said her lines.
After the competition, I asked her whether she would be willing to take part in other competitions in future and she said no. Interestingly, her reason was that she only wants to perform at home and not in front of her classmates coz she doesn't want them to laugh at her. After that she told me that she thought she would get a gold trophy like korkor and I told her that I thought so too if she had told her story on stage. But coz she didn't say anything on stage, they couldn't give her the trophy. She thought about it for a while and then shook her head and said,"but I don't like to go on stage."
Sarah's a really sensitive girl and she thinks that when the audience laughs, it's a negative reaction. I had to explain to her that the audience laughed at Caleb coz they loved his story. But I guess different children have got different personalities. Whilst Caleb the extrovert thrived on the attention on stage, Sarah who is more introverted, didn't like the attention on her at all.
Nevertheless, I thought the competition was very good exposure for the children and me and ND are so proud of them for the effort that they put in to practise their stories.
