ESF School Trip To Watch Snow Dragon At The Hong Kong Academy Of Performing Arts Drama Theater

Updated with more thoughts at bottom on 18 Oct…

***Spoiler alert… Don’t read the brown part if you don’t want to know the storyline** (But really, I think after hearing the story you would want to bring your child to watch it/ read the book even more.)

Billy is a goat who’s been taught that he’ll be alright as long as he’s no. 1, it’s the most important thing, his parents tell him. Also, to leave out berries for the Snow Dragon if he wants a present on New Year’s Day. (His No.1-Obsessive goat parents love berries.)

So off Billy goes into the woods, where he picks on his hedgehog and pig friends, after scoffing at their belief that you have to be good (rather than No. 1) AND leave a snack (that your parents love) out on New Year’s Eve for various fictitious characters. He doesn’t look for berries, he spends the time before it gets dark bullying his friends out of their snacks so he has something for the Snow Dragon.

Finally he meets someone he can’t bully…

Wolves: Who told u that (you’ll be fine as long as you’re No. 1)?

Billy: My parents

Wolves (to each other discreetly): See, it’s the parents I blame

(At which point I’m thinking HAHAHA How Profound!!)

The wolves threaten to eat him unless he returns his friends’ snacks, Snow Dragon or no – and in going back to find them he discovers the real consequences to his indiscriminate bullying – he’s left his friends stuck  up trees and things from his butting.

(Do As You Would Be Done By is a great song.)

Remorseful, Billy helps his friends out of their predicaments – but then returns home late and empty-handed. Angry and disappointed he has not “delivered,” his parents send him to his room hungry.

(Seriously – how brilliant is this thing?)

We're ecstatic. (No, actually we're just ruining another shot.)

In his room, Billy remembers a favorite snack he’s been saving but decides the Snow Dragon needs it more, even if it isn’t berries. Late in the night, the wolves arrive pretending to be the Snow Dragon and exchange his snack for a present. (His parents are of course flabbergasted he still gets a present, in the morning.)

(At which point I’m thinking Wow, this is sooo cool for a school trip in Hong Kong! Sometimes I find the push to excel from a very young age can be just insane. Little kids seem to learn so much so young now, Rockstar has a 4 year old schoolmate who apparently has been seriously playing the violin for 2 years, thanks to Suzuki method. That is 2 years more than me. And I am not 4.

I just think You Really Don’t Need To Tell Your Average Parent In HK To Make Their Child Apply Themselves Harder In School/ Music/ Whatnot, Nearly As Much As You Need To Tell Them To Chill. To remember to throw in the bit about not excelling at the expense of other values, when they talk to their kids. Then again, I’ve heard of parents getting caught fudging sterling reports from their kids’ teachers, on school applications. (No, not any ESF parent I know <uppity sniff>)

It’s ironic that wanting so badly to be a “great parent” as defined (among other things) by getting your child into rabidly over-subscribed exclusive school could instead make you fall short in other aspects of your parenting (like teaching them not to cheat.)  

Rockstar insists on the corner seat. Go figure.

Rockstar watches the show avidly. (In fact, we’re lucky I get in because I’m dumb enough to give him our tickets and he somehow drops one – theater attendants are seriously not letting me in without a ticket, when another parent runs up and hands me the dropped ticket.)

Rockstar’s been coming home telling us about being read the Snow Dragon story in school for the longest time, the school trip on the last day of school was the build-up and culmination of the end of first half-term before a one-week break. The day before, Rockstar came home gravely stating he would not be needing a school bag or snack the next day. “And we have to collect our Snow Dragon sticker before we leave the theatre.” (Which I guess is a great way to ensure the kids remind us parents to tell the teachers before we leave with our children.)

Me: Like it darling?

Rockstar: Yes!!

Me: What was it about?

Rockstar: (Like I’m stupid) Uh, a Snow Dragon?

Me: Is the Snow Dragon real?

Rockstar: No-o he’s not. (Seriously, my son must think I’m daft.)

Me: What does it teach you?

Rockstar: Don’t know. I don’t know, be number 2? I want to be number 2!

Me: <dismayed> It tells you it doesn’t matter whether No. 1 or 2 if you got there by being mean! You’re supposed to – (Rockstar’s nodding disinterestedly like he’s Been There Done That) <accusingly> they told you that in school, didn’t they.

Rockstar: <nodding> Yeah

Me: Then WHY did you say Don’t Know?

Rockstar: Hee. Sooo don’t boss me. 

What I got from the show (besides the obvious):

1) Not everyone who looks like a wolf behaves like a wolf (but sometimes people who look like silly goats really do behave like silly goats.)

2) Wolves sometimes do inexplicable things like not eat goats and go to a lot of trouble to teach them to do what’s right. (Maybe they’re playing with their food.) Well they could eat Billy’s parents?

Ok but seriously, Kings and I have met a few “Snow Dragon Wolves” whom we’ve thought were going to have us for breakfast – and it turned out they were really not. There were lessons we’d needed to learn, to make us better. At our jobs, as people… We could never repay them, and then they told us they’d had their own “Snow Dragon Wolves” whom they couldn’t repay, and so they were our SDWs. Possibly, some are reading, now. I hope they are. All we can do is pay it forward, a little at a time.

If you wanted someone to be an SDW to you, be one. (Wah, so zen right?) Besides, otherwise some of em might think the world’s just better off if you’re eaten. (Hey. Is that why Billy’s parents don’t venture out themselves after dark?) Wouldn’t you rather befriend a few SDWs in life so you can go out for berries, even in the dark? THERE’s a work analogy for you in the market – SDWs won’t befriend you if they think they can’t turn you and may as well just eat you.

Rockstar’s the one  in Kindy, but I get to learn too.

Snow Dragons might not exist. But SDWs do…

ps: And if you are kiasu, No.1-obsessive parent who thinks that’s how to get ahead, you may want to have another think about what happens if you get caught… I am rather idealistic yes, but I am not also impractical – getting caught will set your child far behind all the kids who did not cheat, try that on for size.

As for the parent who got caught fudging the school report, their child was blackmarked on all school applications because the school whose report got fudged got so freaked out they apparently notified all the likely schools the child had applied to, of the report fudging. Don’t do that to your child.