Juggling at a Chinese Birthday Party

After a forty minute car ride back into the city we parked in front of a skyscraper. I couldn’t see the top of it because there was so much fog in the air.

Zoltan, the two westerners that I shared a cab with, and I followed the nun, whose organization had set up this whole exchange program. A few floors from the ground but nowhere near the top we found the restaurant that had been rented out for Mr. Money’s birthday.

The man’s name wasn’t actually Mr. Money. His last name was pronounced Qian which sounds like the Chinese word for money. He was very wealthy though and helps support the nun’s organization, along with building a lavish Buddhist temple of his own. Hence the name ‘Mr. Money.’

There were three long tables and a stage at the front of the room. Light Chinese music that I couldn’t understand played in the background. We were the first ones there.

Slowly guests trickled in, and they were seated throughout the restaurant. The birthday boy showed up and his kids and grandkids surrounded him. The nun and other monks that had arrived at the birthday party were also seated close to him, including the westerners and me. I happened to be seated across from a relative, probably a cousin, of Mr. Money and the man was delighted to meet the other westerners and me. He didn’t speak a word of English but his body communicated enough. I talked with the westerners and looked interested in the people speaking across the table from me in a language that I didn’t understand but hoped I soon would.

The waitstaff served food. The nun had assured us ahead of time that everything would be vegetarian. Buddhist don’t eat meat, and for the next six weeks. Despite not knowing much about the religion I was supposed to be playing the part of a Buddhist monk.

On the ride here Zoltan and the nun attempted to teach me the Chinese words to politely refuse. However, I had all but forgotten them. The words sounded like “boo yao she she,” but then the Chinese would laugh at the sound of my butchered pronunciation.

To solve this issue, I accepted everything that they offered me except for alcohol. The nun told us we weren’t supposed to drink and I wasn’t eager to upset her on the first night.

The food was colorful, flavorful, and utterly unidentifiable. I ate and practiced my chopstick skills which were rusty and would require polishing. If I didn’t improve I would never feel full on this trip.

As I reached for something on the community style table, Zoltan leaned towards all the westerners and said, “apparently it’s Chinese tradition to perform something on their birthday to wish them good luck in the coming year. If you have any talents, you’re welcome to perform.”

“Are you doing anything?” One of the other two westerner’s asked.

“I do yoga to music, and people seem to like it,” He said with a shrug. “I’m going to see if they can hook up my music here, and I will do that.”

“I can juggle,” I volunteered, “but I don’t have any juggling balls with me.”

“That’s a bummer. I’ll see what I can do.” Zoltan responded.

Or don’t, I thought.

A few minutes later the nun was enthusiastically shouting Chinese across the table, gesturing at me, all while miming the act of juggling. A waitress was summoned, and I went back to eating the unidentifiable vegetarian food.

Soon a waitress reappeared with a silver bowl that had three brown eggs in it. The eggs were still steaming from recently being pulled out of boiling water. She gave them to the cousin that was sitting across from me. He raised his eyebrows and offered them to me. The nun translated, but this time I didn’t need her to, “Yeah that will work.” I responded. The man was ecstatic. Zoltan walked off to see if he could get his music wired into the speakers of the restaurant.

The meal ended, or at least people quit eating as much, performers went to the stage. Someone introduced them in Chinese and every once and a while the nun would trickle back a translation. First was the singing. A half-dozen people sang for Mr. Money, some talented, some only a step above karaoke.

Sometime during the set of singers, Zoltan returned to the table without his phone. “Are you going to do it?” One of the westerners asked.

“Sure,” Zoltan said with a shrug. “What’s the worse that could happen? They love westerners here, and if I mess up, I’m never going to see them again.” This was a sentiment that stayed with me throughout my trip. Whether or not it was accurate became irrelevant to me. It was useful and pushed me out of my comfort zone time and time again.

Then a standup comedian started talking on stage. People thought he was funny but the jokes were obviously lost on me. Then after a few more acts, there was a gesture at Zoltan. He stood up and walked to the stage. The nun announced him in Chinese and explained his routine. The music began, and he started his yoga.

I will do my best to describe how he looked on stage, but I have to prerequisite with asking you to get the images of down dog, up dog, and chaturanga out of your head. I didn’t realize it until later, but Zoltan had traveled in India following a yogi for months if not years. His body flowed with the music, and his face looked relaxed as he did it.

He started straight up and moved his hands slowly like they were being pulled by the wind. His body moved to the slow rhythm of the meditation music and eventually, his body was stretched into positions that seemed to relax him, along with those who watched. As the song came to a close he unwound himself and bowed. When he finished, it felt like the room had stood still in time. All the Chinese and westerners applauded as Zoltan bowed and left the stage.

He gave me a crooked smile and raised an eyebrow. I would become fond of this expression in time because it meant trouble or at least something interesting was about to happen.

Then time had to catch up, and everything seemed to happen at light speed. I grabbed my boiled eggs out of the silver bowl and walked up to the stage. The nun introduced me and the phase “nagga nagga Juggling nagga [chinese word]” sticks out in my mind. All while she is shifting her hands up and down in juggling gestures. Juggling is not a commonly used word in Chinese.

I waved with eggs in my hand then started juggling. I performed using only the muscle memory I had picked up in high school. I did a three-ball cascade which is the basic juggling pattern to get a feel for the weight of the eggs in my hand.

Did I practice beforehand? Ha! You must think I plan these ahead.

I then switched to some more complicated tricks and a light “Ooo” dispersed through the crowd. This sound is the typical reaction for anyone who juggles, and I assure you it wasn’t because of my talent.

Then it happened. I don’t know what I was doing maybe switching between tricks or trying something new. I honestly don’t remember. However, before I noticed it, an egg was on the floor. The crowd cheered at the end of my performance, but I didn’t take the cue.

I’m not a performer by any stretch of the imagination if I was then I would have acted much differently in this situation. At this point, Juggling is muscle memory for me, and that includes what you do when you drop a ball. You just pick it up and start over again; at least when you’re practicing. I bent over, picked up the ball and began again.

I juggled a bit but the cracked egg felt funny in my hand, and it was shedding shell fragments on the ground in front of me. I wrapped my impromptu act up, caught the balls and bowed. Light applause but nothing like what I received before came from the audience.

I walked off stage and didn’t know or care if my face was red. I had fun, and I was smiling. I had walked up on stage and done something that made me uncomfortable. For that, I was rewarded with a feeling of accomplishment and confidence. These were not common feelings for me back home in America.

Then a young lady walked out from behind the stage. She wore a traditional silk Chinese robe that had yellow vines and flowers on a field of red. She carried a bag of sticks with her and set it down next to her on the stage.

She proceeded to grab the smallest stick on the stage. Then the second smallest which was twice the length of the first. She balanced the short one on the end of the longer one. She then took a new stick, twice as long as the second, and stacked the two balancing sticks on that. She repeated this and as she added sticks her stacked slowly grew up, and away from her.

The last thing she did was balance this precarious stack of eight or so sticks on to a rod that was longer than she was tall. She balanced them successfully and the sticks hung in the air floating like a mobile in a baby’s crib. She rested it on a stand that was built to hold the longest stick, and the crowd applauded. It was amazing to see her continued focus to repay her with a stack of balanced sticks that was long and nearly taller than her.

Then she walked to the end, stood up on her tippy toes and plucked the first stick from the stack.

It shattered the balance of the entire contraption. All the sticks fell to the ground. The audience laughed in appreciation and applauded. I wasn’t a hard act to follow, but her performance was incredible.

Author’s Note: So I may have remembered the stick act wrong. There may have been a feather on one end and a lot bigger sticks. Here’s a youtube video that illustrates something similar to what was performed: Amazing balancing of sticks