I set foot in China for the first time around one year ago, within just a couple of weeks to attend the 2007 Annual Party. That party, as you may have read in the original post, was a total surprise to me. The typical bo-ring US corporate party was my precendent and what followed was shocking – and great! There was such a genuine festive mood in the air and folks when around wishing each other a Happy New Year, complete with drinking and laughter. What was even more surprising was that coworkers, regardless of their ability, got up and performed for each other. In fact, I remember clearly Sally, one of the HR girls, had joined our team that very day and was the first performerer of the evening. She got up and sang a solo! That blew me away!

Fast forward one year to the 2008 Annual Party. We had a bigger budget, a bigger crowd, a real stage with lights, digital video, the works. I was impressed. The organization is still something of a mystery to me – a committee of employees somehow forms and they end up putting together this amazing good time. I was volunteered to sing a duet with Sally – the same Sally. “OK, sure!”, I said without hesitation. It was quite a challenge for me, though barrels of fun. Learning an old “Chinese Opera” duet was no easy feat. I practiced the song, entitled “Lin Mei Mei”, many times so that I’d have it committed to memory.   I had a sense of pride that prevented me from allowing myself to show up on stage with a cheat sheet, although I was tempted to scribble the beginnings of the lines on my hand.

Here are some pre-party preparation pics:

(l-r) Practicing again and again w/ Sally, Trying out the stage, Some of the boyz perfect a funny dance

(l-r) Cherie is our talented choreographer (and receptionist), Displaying some of the doorprizes, Posing with some of the dancers, who are test engineers mostly.

More performers for the evening:

People start rehearsing for the show about one month to two weeks before. I didn’t get serious until the final week and had to cram the night before the show. Even then I was getting my “Xin1″ 心 (“heart”) lines mixed up a la “My heart is moving like the wind blows through the willows” and “Though this stranger has descended from the sky, deep in my heart I know she’s a long time friend.”

Here are some great shots from the performances:

(l-r) The dance number set a good tone, Leon and Pinkamon perform. Pinkamon is from Thailand and has about the same Chinese ability as me. We were the only foreigners to perform. Gotta get Bill or Daryl (if he’s in town) to perform next time.

Like the costumes?

There were some choice door prizes too: Zunes, Gifts Certificates, XBox 360s… Jimmy gave out many of them. I like this picture which shows Jimmy and William looking surprised at the recipient of the current prize (not sure who this particular prize was for):

We had a tasty Cantonese dinner spread out over a long time while playing a singing game. The microphone went from table to table and someone would get up and sing a capella. I think the objective was to begin your song on the same word that the last song ended. Finally, to wrap up the evening, we then went around to each other’s table toasting and wishing a each other a happy new year of much prosperity, luck, fortune, money, happiness, and so on.

Marshall croons for the appreciative crowd.

A colleague shot this video on his still camera so it’s not so good, but you’ll get the idea of the performances. There will be a high quality version which I’ll be sure to add later.

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