Families take stage in performing contest
Eight-year-old Zhou Chengyi performs Shanghai-style rap to the accompaniment of his grandfather’s band.
Graeme Blevins from the UK presents a music and dance show with his Chinese family members.
Over the weekend, 10 families from Jing’an District staged crosstalks, short sketches and other performances in the final round of the district’s 2020 Chinese and Foreign Families Drama Contest at the Daning Theater.
Graeme Blevins from the UK, nickname Xiao G by his mother-in-law, Shen Jinmei, presented a music and dance show with his Chinese relatives.
His wife Zhou Ping and his father-in-law Zhou Bingcheng started the show with a traditional dance of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Then it was Shen’s turn. She presented a classical Peking Opera aria. Lastly, Blevins entered the stage with a guitar. The family of four sang a popular Chinese love song.
“I’ve been living in Shanghai for 15 years,” Blevins said. “I think Shanghai is the best place.”
According to his wife, they met during a gathering at Xintiandi 15 years ago and got married two years later. Now, the couple and the wife’s parents live on different floors of the same building.
“The contest has brought us closer. We visited each other’s homes more frequently,” she said. “It’s my first time performing on the stage with my parents. I’ve sent the videos of our performance to Blevins’ parents back in the UK. They said they can feel our happiness.”
Among other contestants, 8-year-old Zhou Chengyi performed Shanghai-style rap to the accompaniment of his grandfather’s band.
“I love Shanghai-style rap, which has greatly influenced my grandson. Now, he can speak Shanghainese very fluently. He had won a Shanghainese contest when he was just aged 5,” said his grandfather, Wang Genrong.
Performer and producer Lin Quan and his daughter Lin Hanqi performed a skit where the daughter decided to abandon her fencing hobby as the father’s business was hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.
“It has bridged the generation gap, and we have become close friends,” the father said. “I hope my daughter will never forget her time with her parents when she grows up.”
The contest, requiring a five-minute creative performance, attracted video submissions from 623 families. They included retired couples, disabled children and mixed Chinese-Western families.
After a preliminary selection, 115 families reached the semifinal round, and 10 of them entered the final. Their performances will be broadcast on TV on September 26, and the results will be released then.
Luo Xin, a local TV anchor and one of the contest organizers, said people spent much time at home during the COVID-19 outbreak, which triggered many family disputes.
“We hope local families can present conflicts they have gone through, to teach others a lesson as well as to bring family members closer,” he said.
