Music and balance on a Venetian canal

Eight Young Post Junior Reporters went to the Venetian-Macau to learn about life as a performer. They met a gondolier, street performers and members of the cast of Disney on Ice. Here are their stories.

Ruby Chan

The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed rowing boat from Venice in Italy. Gondolas are hand-made using eight different types of wood. The left side of the gondola is longer than the right side. This prevents it from turning to the left.

The person who rows a gondola is called a gondolier. For our 50-minute gondolier lesson, I was in Rocco's group. Rocco is a nice Italian man who patiently taught us how to be a gondolier. At first, I thought being a gondolier would be easy. I didn't think we'd need experience - it looks so simple.

But after trying to stand up and control the gondola, I found I had no control at all! Rocco reminded me to face the bow, or the front, and row with a forward stroke, followed by a compensating backward stroke. Slowly I managed to make the gondola move.

After that, we sat down and enjoyed the lovely Macau scenery. Rocco then taught us an Italian song. It was hard for me to remember how to pronounce the Italian words. But Rocco was not annoyed. Finally, he sang us the famous song Santa Lucia, which was the perfect ending to our lesson.

Dora Cheung