It is said in local laowai circles that China seems to attract a somewhat higher percentage of weirdos. While I’ve certainly met my share of creepy, strange, and/or weird foreigners, I find that one reason I like the expat community is that I have a greater chance of meeting someone really interesting. Of course there are all kinds of expats, but I feel like the kinds of people I generally like are the kinds of people that would move to China.

And so it is that I found myself taking pictures of an event for my coworker’s (TJ’s) cousin’s friend, Jonathon, and his roommate, John. Because no part of that sentence is confusing.

John and Jonathon, when you ask what they do, say they bring joy to people using latex:

Jonathon also goes by Fudge, so for the sake of clarity, I will refer to him as Fudge, like his shirt does, for the duration of this post.

John and Fudge are balloon artists from Florida. Yes, like flowers and dogs, but they do so much more than that. They definitely earn the ‘artist’ label. Go to John’s website for a few more examples of what he can do. The dress is pretty amazing.

Since they offered to let me stay with them over the Expo weekend, I offered my photographer’s services as pay through trade. That weekend they were working for Tudou, a Chinese video website.

They worked the crowd for about 40 minutes, during which they made more than I make in a month.

Yeah.

Fudge went out alone first, so I followed him around first as he wrote things on balloon thought bubbles and got kids and their parents to scream and plead for one of his balloons.

I can’t tell who wanted the kids to get a balloon more: the kids themselves, or their parents.

There were endless shouts of “Hello! Over here!”

Balloons go over really well here. I’ve seen John and Fudge turn grown adults into wide-eyed eager kids anxious for a balloon monkey in a palm tree or overtly phallic balloon objects. But that’s a different post.

After about 15 minutes, John came out to do his thing.

John is really good at emoting and making silly faces for the adults kids.

He made a hat for a whole family.

As well as flowers and monkeys and all other kinds of hats.

The ladies just throw themselves upon John and Fudge for their balloons.

Sometimes balloons pop by themselves, sometimes John or Fudge trick an audience member into grabbing one and having it purposely deflate as soon immediately.

After another ten or fifteen minutes, another entertainer came out. His schtick was getting 4 or 5 people into a giant balloon.

Eventually parents started putting their kids inside the performance circle so they could run up to John and have a better chance of getting a balloon.

He and Fudge made a Mickey Mouse as a grand finale.

The people in charge liked it so much they asked him to make another after the gig, and then someone else requested a Hello Kitty and a flower and a heart and all sorts of things.

I had a grand old time running around and taking pictures of John and Fudge and also the audience. The plethora of cute kids really made for about 400 photos.

After the gig we went to dinner and then to Cold Stone for dessert. When we walked into the Cold Stone, the people behind the counter recognized John and Fudge and expressed disappointment that they hadn’t come in to the Cold Stone during the performance. Immediately, John and Fudge whipped out balloons and started twisting them into hearts and flowers. They, and even the manager, liked them so much they gave us an extra free ice cream with Oreos and a coupon for ice cream next time. Good deal!

John and Fudge really liked all the photos I took, so when I move to Shanghai at the end of next month, I’m going to hone my craft and make myself available as an event photographer. So if you or anyone you know happens to need a photographer, email me at ellis (at) plateofwander (dot) com.