Today has been a rather interesting end to the week, and start of a FINE weekend. First of all, I settled my property in New Zealand today. The owner decided to stay, and pay a rent of $215. In the afternoon, Mary O’Brien of NZ Mortgage Solutions (my finance broker) called and congratulated me for the purchase, and asked me to go celebrate tonight. What’s an even BIGGER surprise was that, our work receiptionist called, and told me there’s a delivery for me. Hmm.. I thought that’s a bit unusual. When I got to the receptionist, she pointed out this BIG pot of plant at me. I took a surprised stare at it, and go, “Are you serious??!!” A gift from some girl I know? From Marissa? It turns out to be my mortgage broker! Got me worried there for a second…
After the day has finished, Marissa came and picked me up from work. We didn’t really plan to do anything tonight. We drove the car back, and had a bit of dinner at this Japanese place near China Town. After that, as we strolled back to Darling Harbour, we were planning to go home. To my surprise.. our favourite street performer is there again! Yes.. the dude that draws huge crowd, balances his BMX on a pole, juggles knifes, flames and eat apple at the same time. This would be the 4th or 5th time I’ve seen him!
Anyway.. the time is about 9:30pm. He starts his routine, by slowing getting the crowd to stop and look at him. The usual flame juggling, and a few smart comments later, the crowd starts to gather. Nothing unusual here. However, there is something different about the crowd tonight. Understandably, it’s a Friday night and there are a lot of ‘younger’ people who’s just ‘too cool’ for his stuff. It’s not the usual happy, cheery and supportive crowd. Something already tells me, this spells trouble for the performer. We stayed and watched..
Halfway through his show, he was balancing himself ontop of his BMX ontop of a 5m high pole, with 5 guys holding it steady. At this point, you would think that if a few of these 5 guys decide to be un-cooperative and let go, he would fall straight off. Everything was ok, until these 2 drunks decided to join the crowd. One of them started by shouting and interrupting the show. He shouts, “Go back to school!” Followed by some gibberish. His friend, decided to walk right into the middle of his show, and stood next to one of the 5 guys holding the rope. Several attempts of telling him off by the performer failed. And before you know it, the drunk took hold of the rope, and gave it a massive jerk! This forced the performer to go off-balance, but he was fortunate to have not fallen off. The drunk made a run for it. The performer jumped down the pole (amazing jump from 5 metres high), and ran after the drunk. Amazingly, some of the crowd went after the drunk too, and apparently punched him hard.
What amazes me was that, not only did the performer NOT lose his cool, he came straight back, instructed the 5 guys to hold the pole steady again, jumped back onto the bike, and continued the show! What a spirit! You would think that is as unlucky as he could get for one night. But no! Another 10 minutes into the show, his microphone battery decided to die! So, he had to shout! I could barely hear him. Once again, he continued and finished the show.
After the show, I could tell the crowd felt sorry for him. With his bag wide open ready to recieve money, majority of us went up and donated money to him. One lady donated $50!
It just goes to show, what perserverance this guy has, under the worst of circumstances! There is so much to admire about that! I am sure, under the same circumstances, I would have chosen to pack up and go home! But no.. I just learnt that there is a choice, and you can choose to be affected, or be the one to affect the environment.
Fantastic lesson!!
