The funny thing about life here is that even when I think I am going to have an ordinary day of studying Chinese, teaching English, and checking email, something extraordinary happens. I have to wonder i f this is true in Cambridge as well and I'm just not paying attention. Anyway, the other day, while we were walking through town, we noticed a very small boy playing with broken pieces of windowpane glass in front of his grandmother's shop. Seemed pretty dangerous to us, but safety has different parameters here. Continuing on, we came to three men scraping the hair off a dead donkey. Despite it having been a dark-haired donkey, the skin underneath was as white as one's scalp.

On our way back, the men were scorching the donkey with blowtorch. The little boy, with all fingers miraculously intact, was tenderly kissing his pet rabbit. AND we saw a circus tent right on Bailongsi's main street! Loud music emerged from a dirty, saggy, formerly white tent that would not inspire any envy at the Big Apple Circus. Actually, it was pretty dismal looking, but the photos on the sign (which I could sort of read) promised great excitement. I confirmed the performance time and price (2 yuan, less than 25 cents) with the barker who was as thrilled to see us as we were to see him.

We went early to get good seats, but the tent was already crowded with about 200 people and the performance had begun. Did you know that not only is it permissible to smoke in a Chinese circus tent, but it seems as if it may be mandatory? We got a plastic lawn chair and wooden stool by the other American teachers. They told us we missed the introduction in which the "foreigners from modern society" were especially welcomed (in Chinese, of course. Michael's Chinese is much better than mine.) On a badly lit stage, five young, but not especially attractive, women in red spandex shorts and tops were dancing. It's hard to say which was more notable, their complete boredom or their lack of talent. Even though their outfits were not much skimpier than you can see along the Charles River running path during summer, their white cotton underpants and bras protruded, lending a particularly sordid air. This dancing went on for so long that we wondered if perhaps we were wrong about it being a circus. It's not as if I actually know the Chinese word for circus after all. We just saw a tent and thought "circus!"

But it was a circus, without a doubt the most pathetic of all circuses we have ever seen in a developing nation. Or on this planet. Finally, a young man in regular clothes rode a horse around while waving a red flag. The most exciting part was when he accidentally dropped the flag.

Next, a woman lay on her back with her legs up in the air. With her feet, she rotated a large ceramic urn. Now I have never tried this, but it seems like something one could probably manage with just a little practice. Then a tiny little girl, I'm guessing 4 years old although she looked even younger, came out, and without grace or confidence slowly climbed on top of the urn. She did not make it look easy, and when she finally stood up on the urn, she did not look proud. She looked scared. She looked miserable.

There were a few acts that we really just didn't get the point of so I won't go into detail. The magician had a few good tricks, none of which I have seen in the U.S. (and during my seven years at Graham & Parks, I observed a *lot* of magic shows). However, his showmanship was minimal. It's as if he were embarrassed to be on stage.

There was more riding the horse around and more listless dancing. Then came xiangsheng which is a traditional comic dialogue that depends heavily on puns and requires way more knowledge of Mandarin than I possess. Suffice it to say I understood fewer than five sentences and those didn't seem funny. All during that, we watched the other performers since "backstage" was entirely visible. Some smoked, the young women stared into space, and the little girl practiced backbends, one after another. By the time she actually got to perform that stunt, we had every confidence that she would manage. We clapped loudly for her. A few people around us looked at us and clapped halfheartedly. No one else clapped at all.

Towards the end, one guy climbed to the top of the tent on a rope that seemed to be structurally significant. John said, "Usually when this happens I worry that the performer will fall and die. Now I'm worried the tent will collapse and *we'll* die!" We didn't , but lung cancer from second-hand smoke may get us yet.

We thought the grand finale was when the young women changed to the most fabulous costumes of the evening--sequined black bikinis (with underpants underneath pushed down, but still showing). But no, there was more. Some guy sang and somewhere through the second verse, people stood up and started to leave. No applause at all. Of course, not much was warranted.

We had not, of course, been expecting anything close to the acrobatics we saw in Beijing last year. And we probably should have wondered why a circus was setting up in Bailongsi instead of downtown Kunming. But the lack of enthusiasm OR skill surprised us since on any Sunday in almost any city park in China, you can see amateurs performing with both passion and skill.

It was absolutely the worst circus we ever saw and we wouldn't have missed it for the world.