Drama Salon

Megan and I were invited to an event on Saturday night called "Drama Salon" put on by the Foreign Languages Club at the university. While there was a distinct absence of hair cutting or styling of any kind, the event turned out to be a good time. A few groups of students put on some skits in English and Japanese, but the show could be more accurately described as a multi-lingual talent/variety/game show.

The Salon was held in a large classroom with a bit of a stage at the front, and when we arrived we found that a few seats in the front row had been saved for us. As always Megan and I, along with a Japanese professor, were the guests of honor. On this occasion, that meant that on the desk in front of our seats sat a banana, 2 oranges, a pile of sunflower seeds, a few candies and a bottle of water. Megan and I are happily growing accustomed to this this kind of hospitality everywhere we go now.

Our seats stocked with sunflower seeds and fruit!

Waiting for the show to start.

The show started with one of the emcees of the event crooning a popular Chinese ballad. The guy was an absolute lady killer. His voice was good and he had the moves to pull it off, complete with the mic cocked vertically and the classic "eyes-closed-arm-outstretched" move that R&B singers have been perfecting for decades. Years of karaoke have clearly paid off for this gentleman. There were several more songs performed throughout the drama salon and none lived up to this first song.

The star singer. This photo does not do him justice.

Two other singers who were not quite as charismatic as the first singer.

After the opening song there was a performance of a famous Japanese folk story that I'm pretty sure I read in Japanese class in college. I didn't understand it then and I didn't understand it now, but it involved a girl who has a horrible deformity on her face, which was displayed in the skit by sticking a ping pong ball to a girls face.

The girl with the ping pong ball on her face.

The Japanese skit was followed by an English skit about a guy and girl who lament to their friends that they need a significant other. Coincidentally, one of the guy's friends is the brother of one of the girl's friends, and the siblings decide to set the lonely pair up on a blind date. When the time for the date comes the boy introduces himself to the girl and declares her the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Unfortunately, the girl was revolted by the boy and ran out on the date. The moral of the story, as recited by the entire cast at the end of the skit, was "Love should be expected, not made."

Next came the game show portion of the evening, in which volunteers from the crowd were made to play musical chairs on the stage. If a contestant was eliminated, they had to perform some sort of punishment in front of the crowd. The punishments included popping a balloon between the back of another person, making the noise of 5 different animals, or singing a song in front of the group. The winner of the game, who was quite a ham, decided he wanted to sing in front of the group as well, even though he didn't have to. He wasn't a great singer, but his song was redeemed when about 1/3 of the way through two of the hosts and the runner-up decided the urge to sing was too strong and joined the winner on stage for a spontaneous quartet. It was awesome.

Musical chairs!

One of the punishments. They're popping a balloon between them.

The spontaneous quartet. The winner of musical chairs is far right, and very into the song.

There were a few more skits and songs, but those were definitely the highlights of the night. We hope to be invited to more similar events in the future.