Cornered by the English Association

One of my calligraphy classmates which I met last week sent me a message yesterday to invite me to join her college's 'English corner' that night. She is studying at the Nanning branch of the Guilin College of Engineering, at An Jin Avenue, about 20 minutes by bus from my university.
With nothing else on the agenda, and curious to meet another pool of students, I agreed to join, so last night I boarded bus 84 towards the An Jin intersection. I had located it on the map, it was not that far away. I got off the bus one stop too early though, so there was some confusion as where to go, but soon after a phone call she arrived with two friends to accompany me to their college.
Arriving there, I was greeted by a large crowd of mostly female students (even at an engineering college there appeared to be more girls than boys), but soon I discovered that many of the students came from different colleges, including some from my university, and from Minzu Daxue (University for Nationalities) where Yanyan is also studying. Some groups came dressed in their school uniforms. There were about 500 students present on the large square in front of the main building.
A PA system was installed and the MC announced a dance performance by members of the English Association. After that, the MC himself started singing, soon after joined by the female host for a duet. Then it was my turn to hold the wireless mike. The idea was that I would say a few words in English, tell the audience a bit about myself and my country, and invite everybody to ask questions and talk to me. The whole purpose of the event, which happens once per semester, is to give the students the opportunity to talk to a foreigner and practice their spoken English. It is upon the members of the English Association to find a foreigner willing to join the event. This time it was me. Of course I was unaware of the purpose and details of the program at the time I agreed, but I didn't regret my decision for a moment.
Most of the students have never talked to a foreigner before. So I was quickly surrounded by an excited crowd of mostly girls who nervously asked to be photographed with me. It was a weird sensation to have so many mobile phone camera's pointed at me, flashing away, while constantly being asked for my phone number, which I didn't give away, fearing a constant barrage of calls and messages for the rest of my stay in China.
In the meantime, a group of roller skaters from Guangxi Daxue (my university) where performing a very impressive act of zigzagging and twirling around two rows of small cones laid out on the square. Compared with these guys (including one girl), the folks practicing similar manoeuvres in Amsterdam's Vondelpark are mere amateurs.
The two girls who had brought me here, and the chair of the English Association, could barely pull me away from the crowd of girls who were still trying to get my number, to step out into the street for a meal. I'm pretty sure my face will soon grace hundreds of QQ pages (the Chinese equivalent of Facebook) and be stored in many private collections as 'my foreigner friend'.
Out on the street the four of us entered a small restaurant where I was treated to a nice meal with fish soup with tofu, sweet and sour pork, beef with shredded chilies and a side dish of green vegetables. Add some bottles of beer and you can't go wrong. It was close to midnight when I finally said goodbye, and since bus 84 only runs until 21:30, I was driven home by the chair of the association on a electric scooter. A fun evening!