We had a big dinner Wednesday night to bid farewell to Nick (or, as I call him, Snake–seen here making silly faces with me), who is returning to Australia after six months of valiant service at our office. In his personality, mannerisms, and facial expressions he reminded me quite a bit of Remy (only those of you from The Claw will get that reference–and fully appreciate what a compliment it is). Anyway, Nick’s a great guy who will be missed – I wish I’d had more time to hang out with him.
The dinner was held on the 14th floor of a hotel in downtown Changchun which has large party rooms. The rooms have a long bank of windows, a big screen TV connected to a karaoke machine, and a huge round table with a mechanical lazy susan in the middle. The lazy susan rotates on its own, so food slowly goes by you. I’m good enough with my chopsticks that I can get most things off their dish and onto my plate without making too much of a mess, but when I’m trying to put food on the plates of the people sitting on either side of me and then getting my own food, things become more difficult.The dinner was a great opportunity to spend some quality time with my coworkers. The Chinese TA’s are some of the hardest working people I’ve met anywhere. 
We’re almost talking Randy-like devotion to their jobs. Each English language class at my office has a Chinese TA to assist the Foreign Teacher. The TA’s are also responsible for creating or procuring all the learning aids used in the classes. They put in long, hard hours and are at least as responsible (if not more so) for the outcome of the classes as the FT’s are.
After the dinner we stayed for a while and sang (shouted, really) karaoke, then we went out to a bar. The bar is one I’d been to before, and I remembered it having a large dance floor. However, when we got there we found that the dance floor had been turned into a large stage and we were fortunate enough to see this group perform:
The video doesn’t come close to doing quality to the caliber of the act (security came and made me put the camera away), but it was two Chinese guys singing pop songs, dancing, and doing acrobatics. When they took a break there was a trained dog act. Honest to God, a trained dog act. The dogs wore costumes that were somehow less chintzy than the costume their trainer wore. And the dogs wore little booties. It was awesome. Probably the best in China.
I would have liked to have stayed longer, but my dorm has a 10 PM curfew. I’d gotten a note to push it back to 12, but even with the extension I had to hustle so I could make it back before I turned into a pumpkin and my horses became anthropomorphic mice. One of my fellow office workers lives in the same dorm as I do, and we’re planning to make the doorman an offer he can’t refuse (¥200-about US$25) to stop enforcing the stupid curfew.
Here’s what you can look forward to in my next blog post:
- Information about my school
- Me being on television
- A little bit about Teachers’ Day
- And maybe some discussion about where I live…and where I have lived here.
Technorati Tags: Changchun, China
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Although I’m not from “The Claw”, I still can appreciate the compliment:)) Be glad to hear more about your Chinese experience..
Has he taken the bribe yet?
…and what a compliment it is! I happened across your blog just today, and I’ve been avidly reading all your back issues. Did I miss the part about you being on television, or has it not come up yet?