End of Year Parties

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Hello!!

We had a fantastic dinner on Monday. It was in
celebration of the lunar new year. I think it is some
time around February 18th. As you can tell,
celebrations start many days before this time.

It was pretty great. 4 of the foreign teachers
attended, as well as 20 or so important clients. These
clients were the HR managers of big companies, like
Sony, Qiomonda, Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, etc.
It was interesting to meet different people.

It is a tradition here to toast and say "cheers." Ely
and I raised our glasses at least 20 times in 3 hours.
It was all in good fun. There is also a gambay. Gambay
is similar to "cheers," but it means that you need to
finish your drink. It could translate to "bottom's
up." Aaron might have done one too many gambays.

After the dinner, the Westerner's entertained. I first
attempted to sing an American song (not my best work).
Then, another teacher kareokeed a Chinese song. He
sounded awful. The goal was for him to sing the melody
(which only he could hear), and for everyone else to
guess the song. He was really, really, bad. So, after
he sang 4 songs, they persuaded me to come and sing.
Another sure mistake. I didn't realize how difficult
this was (to kareokee a song in a foreign language). I
sang 5 awful songs, but luckily everyone guessed which
ones they were. Maybe they were very popular songs, I
don't know. It was all in good fun I guess. After 3-4
gambay's, I was down for about anything.

We had a great time. We shared a taxi ride home with
our boss, Joe. He is a very sincere man. He recruited
us here, and has also volunteered to take us on a 10
day vacation of his hometown, in the Fu'jian province,
south of Suzhou. He is really making the trip
enjoyable for us and hopefully will be enjoyable to
work with in the future.

> So on Monday, we had a party. I thought this was it.
> Not the case. We had another bigger part on Tuesday.
> WOWEE. It was great great fun. Our company rented
> out a conference room with a catered meal. We had
all sorts of food.
>
> Sadly enough, I did try a chicken's foot. It was
> awful. You just pick it up and drop it in your mouth
> and hope to pry off some meaty skin. It was
> unsuccessful and disgusting. I did try it, however.
>
> The meal ended with more karaoke. I sang another
> song, and others did as well. There was also a
raffle. Ely won a 50 RMB phone card. After the raffle,
it was a drink-off. There were 6 tables. The presenter
had a little Chinese drum that you move back and forth
with your hand. She handed a ball to the first table,
and played the drum. Whoever had the ball when the
drum stopped had to come up in front of everyone and
drink (gambay!).
>
> Your choices of alcohol were:
>
> 1. A full glass of red wine
> 2. Peejao (beer)
> 3. Mix of beer and wine.
> 4. Bijao---this deserves some talking about, because
> it is something that should never go near your
> mouth. I had several shots of bijao out of
curiosity. Straight jet fuel. It is around the proof
of moonshine I think. The sad thing is that there are
bigao connoisseurs here. It is like their wine. It is
> awful. You can get a bottle of bijao for around 30
cents, or you could spend $200. It doesn't matter (so
I am told) it is all awful. It tasted flammable to me,
is that normal? No!

Ely and I are leaving for the Fu'Jian province on Feb.
14th. We are very excited. Aparantley we must take a
bus to Shanghai first. Then, we will travel south into
the mountains. How exciting. In the south, there are
palm trees and beaches. The weather is also much
warmer. Hopefully we can experience a traditional
Chinese New Year meal. They are usually anywhere from
15-20 courses. And lots of drinking. Hopefully not too
many old-timers will want to sip on Bijao with me.

Another long e-mail. We just have a lot to say I
guess. Hopefully these are still entertaining. More
pictures will be posted soon. At the last party we
had, one on the chairmen of the company wanted to do
many gambays with me. He was a big-timer, maybe
mid-50s. He knew about as much English as I did
Chinese. Anyways, after the gambay he would turn his
glass around to show me that there was nothing left. I
did this too. If a drop fell out, it was the ultimate
shame.

Anyways, we have some funny pictures.

See ya,
Aaron and Ely

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