Confession:

I love all things marching band.

In 7th grade I had already made up my mind to be the drum major of my junior high school and then of course drum major in high school. Unfortunately, my parents moved me to the other side of the world half way through 7th grade, before I ever got to march. See, in south Louisiana, I would have gotten to march in a Mardi Gras parade in February... but we left Louisiana at Christmas.

I'm pretty sure I will never forgive my parents for that.

When I was looking at colleges, I always looked to see if they had a marching band. But I quickly realized that small Christian liberal arts schools do not have marching bands. Besides, at that point, my main instrument was bassoon, and though I could decently play flute, clarinet, and saxophone, I wasn't sure that a college band director would think so.

I suppose if this is my one big life regret, I'm doing pretty good.

Besides, if I had stayed in the States and marched until my heart was content, I wouldn't have met Nathan. Unless we happened to be at the same high school in the States. But then, of course, I would have been the band nerd and he would have been the football jock and we still would have never met. I would have dated the guy who played the quads. Love those things.

Anyway.

Yesterday, Hong Kong hosted a marching band competition! Bands from HK, China, and Japan came to compete. It was free, so the three of us traipsed over to TST and sat in the bright winter sunshine to watch.

This is the little field set up where the judges judged.

The concert took place on Victoria Harbor, with HK's skyline in the background.

This little conductor was a fan of the marching bands... for the first hour anyway.

Below is a primary school marching band from Nanjing, China. They were mostly a snare drum and trumpet band. :) But how cool that these Chinese elementary students got to travel to HK! I think this was the only group with more traditional marching band hats.

Every other group seemed to have cowboy hats.

Group from Japan in cowboy hats.

These guys had American patriotic songs to go with their cowboy hats.

More cowboy hats.

And since I assume you are all as obsessed with marching bands as I am (or at least curious to know if anyone was any good), here are some videos. If you don't have the patience or interest for all three, watch the first one.

Because who doesn't want to hear Chinese high schoolers perform Lady Gaga? Better yet, who doesn't want to see them dance the robot to Lady Gaga?

But you also might be interested to notice the lack of swing in this group's rendition of "Sing, Sing, Sing." I appreciate their enthusiasm, though.

And finally, the cute little elementary kiddos!

As long as we're in HK, I think we'll encourage our boys to play in the orchestra...