We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Pretty Oz-some wizard

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a high school musical production at a fine arts academy in Uttara, a northern suburb of Dhaka. They performed "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." My host family's grandson played Uncle Henry. He enjoyed it, although at the end when he had to hug Dorothy and ask her never to leave home again, that made him pretty uncomfortable.

Aunty Em, Uncle Henry, and Toto

All in all, the show was great (I should know, I'm almost through the first season of Glee, which really makes me an expert). There were only a few moments that made a fairly familiar show seem foreign:
1. The prayer in Arabic (then recited in English) that preceded the show
2. The dancers all clearly moved with those subcontinent hand gestures and head movements (although I was later corrected and told that they made the dances very American to be consistent with the show......)
3. When the power went out mid-show for a minute or so.
4. When the power went out again. Kudos to the actors for not losing it.
5. When we stood up after the show for the national anthem. The linked version is much better than the one I heard; it reminded me distinctly of the ice cream truck song.
6. When people met me, they excitedly asked if I was from Kansas. Clearly they don't know much about Kansas. Although my jokes are so corny, it would make sense.

Western style dancing during the Tinman's "If i only had a heart" song

Afterwards we went out for chinese food at the Thai/Sichuanese/Chinese/Indian restaurant (yes, there was a page labeled "Sichuan" and a page labeled "China." As usual, I can't make these things up). In addition to the vast array of stated cuisine options, the items menu was really confusing--I was hoping for pad thai and couldn't decide if it would be "Crispy noodle", "thai noodle" or "dry noodle" on the thai part of the menu. Also there was Thai soup listed on the Chinese menu, as well as Ching Chong chicken (or Ching Chong beef). It started to remind me of a somewhat racist SNL chinese delivery skit. I ultimately abdicated responsibility for choosing any dishes, deciding that between not really understanding the options nor knowing what normal choices where, I was pretty useless. The resulting options (thai soup on the Chinese menu, chow mein, sweet and sour prawns, fried rice, beef with mushrooms, etc.) were not things I would have chosen, but fairly decent.

My bangla is coming along slowly, but as sports fans in the U.S. do the same pre-game analysis dozens of times, so too do sports fans here, so I now "understand" when the topic is how England needs to lose to West Indies for Bangladesh to be guaranteed to advance in the cricket world cup. It's equally as interesting as the football pregame show......

I have to admit, when little Bengali Dorothy said, "there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home," I got a little misty eyed. Can only imagine how I would have felt if the band had started in with Dark side of the moon. The ice cream truck version!