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*Editor's Note: This article marks the begining of a weekly travel blog by Natasha P, a CJLO correspondent currently on exchange in Beijing, that will cover her experiences training in Beijing Opera and living in China.*

8 months of training, 4 performances, 6 hours of paperwork, 14 hours in transit and now I find myself sitting in a hotel room on the other side of the world looking out over Beijing.

It's almost by some strange accident that I became involved with Beijing Opera, but it has become my obsession within the past year. After being rejected for the second time from the "Drawing and Painting" studio arts class, I had a big fat space open in my Fall semester that needed to be filled. I settled on the "Chinese Opera" studio course for no other reason than for its use as a movement class this semester. I assumed (very naively, I must add) that I would be good right off the bat considering I had done martial arts as a child. However, during the first class I came to the realization that the training would be extremely challenging as we spent the majority of the session going from one side of the studio to the other doing high kicks that would put even the most robust goose-step to shame. As I continued the class, my fondness for the distinct and dynamic style only increased, and every day that passed I was more and more sure I wanted to spend a summer in China (that was a fun phone-call home). Eventually, after a few fundraising attempts and a dip into the education savings account, I was confirmed as going to the land of the rising sun.

But more about Jingju (or Beijing Opera); don't let the name deceive you, the style of theater is more acrobatic that operatic; this past school year my most used phrase must have been, "Ooooh everything hurts." Concordia University's Theater Department has made an alliance with the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts in Beijing, the foremost school in China for the study of Chinese Opera, and in recent years has formed a bi-annual exchange. Two years ago, a group of students from the theater program made the trek to China, and now in 2011 a second group comprised of 10 Concordia students is participating in the exchange.

One of the main reason I really wanted to go to China, aside from the fact that Chinese Opera had become my favorite class... and that I was girlishly mesmerized by the intricate makeup and the entrancingly beautiful costumes, was my acceptance to the newly formed theater company Jingju Canada. The company was formed by Shijia Jiang (our instructor this year) and Nicholas Santillo (a graduate of Concordia's Theatre Performance Program and one of the original students who went to China two years ago). The company has been getting more and more work as the months passed, to the point of now having a show at the Fringe "Crossroads" June 10th-19th at the Mai. Knowing that I was the member with the least training, it became my mission to venture to China and learn as much as I could, to discover how to be an asset to the company, and to boldly go where no Concordia student has gone before! Silliness aside, I wanted to expand my acting vocabulary into something more stylized than the overdone naturalistic approach that I had been learning about in most of my classes. Plus: ITS FREAKING CHINA! Who wouldn't want to go?

During the voyage there I was blessed with the greatest stroke of luck. A week before departing I was in performance week of the Concordia Production "Faerie Musical." One evening after the performance, my flying buddy, who had come to see the show, greeted me. After the customary congratulations, he informed me that he had received a phone call from Air Canada telling him that our flight had been overbooked. Immediately, my heart sank, and my mind began racing trying figure out how I would manage to get a flight this late in the game and the ungodly amount it would probably cost. However, before I could break down completely, he added that because Air Canada had felt so bad, they had put us on a flight that would cut 5 hours off of our total flight time, and for "inconveniencing us" they would bump us to executive class. Well after a few dozen giddy and giggly twirls around, I jumped onto him like a lemur and began profusely thanking him. Looking back, this might not have been the most appropriate of moves, as his very sweet and demure girlfriend, whom I had just met, was standing no more than a foot away.

So a week later, after a 10 hour crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, Greenland and a good portion of Asia with complementary drinks, good food and seats that actually turned beds, the group of us arrived in Beijing. When waiting for our bus with our translators, who graciously greeted us at the airport, I was feeling such a strange mix of elation, jet lag, giddiness and restlessness. I was astounded that I literally could not READ anything... absolutely everything was in Chinese! I marveled at the fact that I couldn't even decipher the label on the bottle of Cola that I had purchased in the airport - much to the annoyance to my exhausted friends, I must add. We all made our way to the hotel and rapidly passed out in our very short Chinese beds. Over the next few days, we toured the school, and before we knew it we were yet again marching across studios doing kicks and putting ourselves into the most uncomfortable positions with the goal of becoming more flexible.

The first week of classes was rigorous. It was filled with many misunderstandings due to the language barrier and witness to the return of the phrase "Ohhhh everything hurts". This can probably be attributed to the work of Professor Yang who teaches “Basic Skills.” Not a very tall man, he will often enter into the class grumbling and ferociously sucking on a cigarette. He will look us all over with his small, shiny eyes and either give us a sinister smile showing off his crooked and discolored teeth or just continue scowling. As the class continues on, we undergo a barrage of, what the group has agreed, are chains of Chinese insults. Between being manhandled and forced into painful stretches, having our hair pulled and being smacked, most of us approach the class with increased focus and effort as to ward off the teacher's angry outbursts. As of yet, we are still unsure if when he strikes us he means to punish us or congratulate us... we suspect it is a strange and undecipherable combination of the two. The group has playfully begun to refer to him as "Slappy Guy." We were told by participants of the last exchange that this teacher actually walked out of class screaming after saying he could not teach them a class, as they had not trained what he had taught them the previous class. So we have been trying to be good and if we train for only one class it's his. Speaking of which... I am due for my daily session of improving my splits (ugh). Off to self inflicted (but apparently useful) pain.

-Natasha P