Today, we filmed “Laowai Style” (Foreigner Style), a parody video of the famous Gangnam Style video that has caught fire across the world, China included. Our fourteen hours of shooting, travelling, singing, and dancing was the culmination of a week’s worth of effort wherein I prepared the lyrics, recorded the music, send the sound off to my brother DJ Benny who worked magic with lousy audio to give us an amazing track.
But of course, my friends who came early—9:30am call at the Tsinghua South Gate—and late—the end of our Karaoke shoot at midnight—will hold a special place in my heart forever because of the amazing fun we had this afternoon and all the adventures the filming took us on! My impression of adventures, that they mean red dot holographic sights, was completely changed.
Our first filming location was Tsinghua University’s campus, an amazingly picturesque place that is actually the second largest college campus in the world, and undoubtedly the one with the most willow tress, canals, and marble bridges criss-crossing the campus. We began at a four-way intersection on campus and set up shop on the high ground, and began a day’s worth of silly dancing.
After some roundabout filming where my friend Sarah circled around the intersection filming while a spotter ensured she was not killed by oncoming vehicles, we headed towards a large and interesting-looking building and began to dance again. This time, we attracted a fair few onlookers, who applauded us when we finished and even joined in with us afterwards in an impromptu jam session. The moment I managed to convince a fifty-year old tiny Chinese lady to do a weird jig with me on the street I knew the day would be special. Little did I know these small crowds would be a sign of things to come.
We wound our way around campus and I lent my friend Nick my yellow silk Tai Chi outfit so we could have a color-saturated dance-off. Naturally, we attracted another crowd—this time a group of grade-school girls and their teacher. With a little convincing from their teacher, the girls all lined up and did our invisible-horse dance, delighting the crowd and all of us at the shoot. As for the dance-off, it was a success as well.
From Tsinghua, we consumed a feast of Sichuan food, and then we trundled ourselves and our equipment off to the Bird’s Nest, the main Olympic stadium from the 2008 games in Beijing. We expected we might draw some attention in such a highly trafficked area, but nothing prepared us for what happened.
A sea of observers, some two or three hundred, extended outwards on both sides in a crowd five to six deep. Seeing such a massive crowd gave me an incredible rush and pushed me to make my performance even more amazing. Afterwards, the music ended, and, exhausted, I shouted, “Well? Where’s the applause?” Immediately the crowd erupted.
We managed to convince some of these observers to dance with us as well, and teaching them the dance in Chinese with my back to the massive crowd is something I will never forget. Afterwards, many phone numbers were exchanged, many photos taken, many questions asked (What country are you from? Where are you studying? What do you do? Did you grow up in China?).
The day wound on, a shoot at the drum tower gave us more opportunity to act silly, this time with ancient architecture in the background rather than modern, and then off to the subway for some underground footage. We got the shots we needed, although we barely avoided some angry security guards who did not understand our powerful urge to express the human condition.
More travel, dinner, and then a quick break before the night shoot at Wudaokou! We attracted a veritable crew of dancers, including several REAL KOREANS who braved many confused takes to give us a nighttime dance number worth remembering. After that, we pulled some of our new friends back to a nearby KTV parlor for some singing and filming, as well as some haberdashery in an elevator!
The shoot brought us all over the city, and we interacted with hundreds of Chinese people throughout the day. It was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to be doing with my time when I came to China looking to understand humor. True, this humor wasn’t really Chinese in origin—for that matter, it wasn’t American either—but meeting people on the street, exchanging smiles, and getting everyone to laugh together is a step towards a better world, I think.
The video will be up soon, but the experience of making it was incredible regardless of the end product. That being said, I can’t wait to see what this is like when we’re done!