the next time you're watching MTV China and you think you catch a glimpse of my face, don't worry. your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. last saturday my friend nester and i took up an offer to be in a music video for MTV China. we mostly did it for the experience, and i must say that it was an interesting experience. now before you picture us scantily clad and dancing on a beach, i have to remind you that chinese music videos are not like western music videos. as far as i can tell, the plot of the music video was this- the singer is an expert at making chinese paper cutouts, which are like much fancier and awesomer versions of the paper snowflakes we make in elementary school, and nester and i are westerners who have come to china to learn how to make them. we find her, and she teaches us how to cut them. but she's only an expert in the music video; in reality, we discovered that she's about as shitty at making them as we are. why would they pick this as the plot for the video then? we have no idea. also, apparently this singer isn't a regular singer. she's an army singer, meaning that she's on the army payroll, as was the entire crew of the movie. my guess is that this would mean that she's not that good, but i don't know because we never got to hear any of the music. everyone was really nice though, and even though we only got paid 300 kuai for about 18 hours of work, it was worth it. also, one of the assistant directors told me i looked like an actress named Deborah something, who she had seen in an old movie called Pigeon something. I'm still trying to figure out if this is a compliment, so if anyone has a clue what actress or movie she's talking about, let me know.
anyway, despite my high hopes, i don't think i'm going to develop much of a career out of this. although who knows? maybe the song will become a huge hit and nester and i will be swarmed by chinese youths wherever we go. we can only hope.