We had another fun party at work. This one was for one of the managers, PT, an insightful nice fellow from Vietnam. He’s heading back to the US in a week. Again, the party featured plenty of good food, loud music, caturwauling and shrieking karaoke, games, speeches, and even me playing some guitar. Oh yes, and I can’t leave out the belly dancing. I have to hand it to the Chinese and their ability to throw and enjoy a good party. Each of these parties features more good cheer and team spirit than any one I’ve been to in the US. Somehow, everyone is able to drop many barriers and feel comfortable and open with coworkers. Actually, I think some of my observations about the Chinese may help explain this: The Chinese at work place a high value on belonging to groups, which makes them great team players. The emotional connection that’s fostered well by good managers can form good loyalty and openess to teamwork. These parties help to reinforce the sense of belonging.

(l-r) Getting ready for a performance, Louis is playing a Chinese violin (I don’t recall the official name), Michael is the Master of Ceremonies

I’m still impressed with the effort that people go through to have a good time at these parties. Michael wrote a funny script for a video we put together for PT that poked fun in various ways. Also, again I have to mention the openness that the Chinese have at performing at parties, regardless of the ability level. Western folks, especially me, are much more cautious about performing in public unless they are very comfortable and prepared. In fact, for me, I feel more comfortable singing Karaoke in front of a group (I sang a duet of “Auld Lang Syne” at the end of the evening), than I do performing on the guitar. Why is that? Here are some theories: Music is so personal for me that performing it makes me anxious, all of the guitar music that I write isn’t easy to play (I generally never strum simple chords in original music), and I haven’t had much experience recently playing in front of a big group. Anyway, numerous people asked me to play, so, knowing the culture, there’s no way I could say “no” again. Even though Frozen Taco isn’t really the type of music played at an evening of saturnalia, what the heck, I chose to play Simplicity, the acoustic version. The performance went fine (though I had to lean the guitar into the microphone). Would have been great to have an extra guitar and Matt on vocals. The performance may have been up to my own standards then.

Me w/ my old beat-up guitar (like my fake Italian shirt?):

PT later gave an entertaining speech, much of it not up to HR standards in the US. Funny how a Communist country with restrictions on freedom of speech allows for some forms of more open speech than in the US. Obviously, you don’t need explicit laws to curtail expression.

One of the awesome, funny, entertaining, and more creative of performances was belly dancing. Cherie, one of our secretaries (in the center), spent an hour each Monday evening for few weeks teaching coworkers how to belly dance. They put together a long dance set to jungle toms and bongos. The two guys in the back (Ramon and Robin) cracked me up. Check out the fancy costumes:

Here are some photos of the belly dancing practice sessions in the office (from a couple of weeks before):

At the end of the evening, we took a group picture. Here’s a large part of the group, not everyone(below). You can see my head popping up in the back on the left. Jimmy (in pink) and PT (in the green/black stripes) are in the middle.