365 Days of Pork

It’s official, we’ve finished the Year of the Dog and have entered the Year of the Pig. To welcome in the New Year, it’s common for most companies to have their annual New Year parties. These events are similar to the traditional office Christmas Party in some ways, lots of food and alcohol are served, bonuses are distributed, senior management gives annual performance speeches, etc. But the Chinese version of the annual party is almost like a combination of a a night at a karaoke lounge and a work version of American Idol.


Many of the departments spent countless weekends honing their routines or working on costumes. Our HR team recreated the ever popular Riverdance routine, and the only guy in the department was nominated to become the Chinese version of Michael Flately, Lord of the Dance. They went so far as to hire a professional coach to teach them the moves. Out of respect for the time and effort expended by the group, I will restrain from commenting on the performance.








Housekeeping went out of their way on the costume front.














For those departments less musically inclined, ‘embarrass the laowai (foreigner)’ games were created. I was brought up on stage to reenact different times of day on a human clock…..







And then, in a game I still don’t fully understand, we were blindfolded and lead around the stage. Apparently, we were quite entertaining, as the crowd went wild.






After attending two of these dinners back to back, Zach and I fled Shanghai, and what was sure to be a firecracker filled week, and headed to Malaysia. We’ll update you on that trip soon, but if you’re interested in seeing some of our pictures, check out www.flickr.com/photos/tiffandzach.