Gala Dinner

Found out today the Chinese Government spent $565bn on internal security in 2010. This includes police, and traffic control as well as internet security. For the Chinese Government conference they have put 739000 officials on the street to control traffic, marshall crowds etc. in Beijing this week. That number is 3x the population of the city of Hull. Still there are 4000 government officials in attendance at the conference.

Why is this relevant – only that the office Annual Gala dinner was held this week. Apparently most businesses get all the employees together at the end of the Chinese year, and have a celebratory dinner. So many of our distant colleagues travelled into Shanghai for the evening. There were a number of performance awards with prizes first and then the dinner. 7pm to midnight. Normal Chinese banquet – big round tables with lazy susan in the middle, and ten to 12 courses.

The excitement for the vent had been building for a couple of weeks, not around the free food and wine, or the go home gift, nor the performance awards, but for the entertainment. If you go to a sportsman’s dinner in the UK you will be entertained by some celebrity, and then a raucous comedian would round off the evening. Some company events in the west see variety singers, or copy bands. I had asked around about what happened at these events and been told they vary, but could include a lot of drinking (and the ill effects), karaoke, dancing and other performances. The latter was what the office had been getting excited about. People had been rehearsing for weeks their acts.

The evening entertainment consisted of the 23 different performances from different combinations of staff and included songs, dancing, comedy, drama and TV shows. We had a mixed group male and female dancing to lady gaga, a duet doing a Chinese equivalent to Romeo and Juliet, a drag version of a TV dating game, Spanish flamenco dancing, Chinese version of Steptoe and son, and much more in between. Some of which I understood, others I didn’t.

The remarkable thing was that people who are quiet in the office, and wouldn’t say boo to a goose, were transformed on stage, in front of 250 of their colleagues. So 23 acts and I would estimate that close on 180 of the 250 performed at some stage of the evening.

Which brings me to the censorship. Obviously the department I am part of were expected to take part. Well our Chinese assistant expected us to take part. As we are all expats of the retiring shy type, we were not so keen to participate. However we agreed and she organised that we would go on to “I’m too sexy for my shirt” by Right said Fred, dressed as a collection of Village people, with three people dressed as a cow, tiger and bear, oh and carrying a huge stuffed Garfield. This was Ok, when we saw the pop video that we were supposed to go on stage to. Very very distracting. You will have to download it to see. However at the last minute HR felt it was a bit over the top for the Chinese audience, and so they substituted the cartoon version, that failed to play. So they projected us on the big screen instead. Fortunately it was only two and half minutes and we didn’t have to sing. Exit stage left. The feedback was very positive which goes to show I am a long way from understanding the Chinese people. Next the video of the evening to be shown on the reception monitor.

The following day the company arranged a tour for the out of town employees. I tagged along for the sightseeing. Sunny day so when we ascended the pearl tower and the financial centre the views were pretty impressive. The Financial centre observation deck is 100 floors up, with a semi-transparent walk way!. The pearl tower – not so tall has an outside observation walkway, with a glass floor. The group I was with didn’t like the fact I jumped up and down a couple of time on the glass. From the financial centre I could see a football game being played. It was a poor game as the 20 players all seemed to be congregated around the ball as it moved round the pitch.

Enough for now as the second half of the cricket is about to start – Canada need 199 to beat Kenya.