The East Is Red

I’m not even sure I should be uploading this (or the next few articles) while still in the red zone, but hey, I’m close enough to my plane ticket back that hopefully I’ll still make it out alive.

My friend Annie, a professional puppet maker traveling around China on a Fulbright scholarship, decided to have her birthday party at The East is Red, a venue for communist dinner theater.

All of the waiters and waitresses are in communist gear/uniforms. The dining room was large, with about 100 round tables filled with Chinese people. Our own table, set off to the side, was the only with foreigners. While we ate the workers took turns singing and dancing, sometimes with guns or flags thrown into the choreography.

I was hesitant to have any reaction at first. The last thing I wanted was to be the laughing foreigner while an enormous crowd of communists cheered on, glasses raised. The reaction of the crowd, however, did fluctuate between laughter, cheering, and nostalgic nodding.

Everything from the songs to the announcers to the menu was in Mandarin, so, as always, I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. I know that I saw people raising their fists in the air with a bent elbow, a sign of the communist party which stands for, “My head follows my heart.” (Incidentally, this has been brought into Chinese weddings, where the happy couple makes this “We Can Do It” fist as they say their vows.)

Every one of us was given a red flag, and during certain especially celebratory songs, it was amazing to see all of the flags waving together, our own included. Before we were given flags, one of our friends, as especially enthusiastic boy, stood on his chair and raised the red chair covering to the beat of the music. He was welcomed by a neighboring table of what looked like business men to a shot of bi jiu (the strong, horrible, Chinese liquor), which he regrettably took. Before leaving, he was even given a Communist Kaleidoscope. This is all to say that, as a lonely American in a communist crowd, one needn’t worry of projecting sarcasm.