Let's get drunk...Annual Dinner

   If the Chinese needed an excuse to drink...this was definitely it. The Shanghai office that I work in threw their Annual Dinner last night. It's a party to celebrate the previous years successes and to wish the best for the future. "Ganbei", meaning "bottoms-up", was being thrown around like wild-fire. I was totally impressed with the drinking skills of my co-worker, all of which wieght less then 140lbs (some about 90lbs).

   Since everyone wanted to "Ganbei" with the director of the office he inevitibaly had to get drunk. He's not a big guy to start with, then had to give lots of speeches so he didn't have time to eat much...how he kept coherently cheers-ing with everyone was amazing. I saw at least 12 full glasses of Chinese beer go down and I know there were more that I didn't see...by the end of the night Mark was still holding it together really well. He must have been practicing for that night...I would. There's just no way he could stop celebrating with everyone (it's a cultural thing).

Left, Cliff. Right, Mark is in the white shirt (LO director) congratulating everyone on a great year!

Clockwise from bottom left, some celery dish, jellied pork knuckles (?), Scallops with crazy
mushroom, sweet Chestnuts, fruit salad, grilled shrimp, Shanghai sticky rice (mixed with
red beans), some root vegetable in a sweet berry sauce and of course some more pork.

Left, Yummy whole fish. Right, Shanghai sticky rice.

Left, duck broth. Right, whole shrimp. 

See the trophy...the Shanghai LO won for the best On Time Performance
(OTP) for production deliveries. Then all the managers had to drink
from the trophy in celebration.

   The big deal of the night was the Lottery. This is one of the main reasons ppl love the Annual Party. The first prize was 6000rmb in travel vouchers (about $950USD), then 2 ipads and 2 super fancy phones that were given away. There is a giant box that has paper slips where names get pulled out of. All the guests got to do the drawing of winners (there was a PDX legal guys there, a IT manager from the HK office and myself). I got to pick the name for one of ipads and managed to pick my bosses name. I think she was thrilled. After all the prizes were given out then found a Louis Vuitton scarf to give away and i got to draw for that one also. Seems that I would good at picking on the paper with my teammates names on it, Iris (my exchange partner) totally won the scarf.

Here's the lottery in action. Right, half way through giving away prizes they

started requiring people to "bottoms-up" in order to claim their prize!

Iris, this is your prize! You only get to see the box and
have to wait to come back to Shanghai before seeing the scarf

Cheers to Cliff, Tony and Oliver!

More and More drinking!

    I was lucky to be a women and to have the excuse that I am allergic to beer (which is a true possibility, sad as it is). B/c of these 2 things there wasn't preassure for me to drink. So besides having to down a glass of red wine (which I hope to never have to do again) I stuck to drinking banana milk and watermelon juice all night. My friends, Trisha and Shawn, from Portland were flying in that night so I was more excited to see them then wanting to drink a lot.

Left, Cliff is really about to fall asleep on Diana's shoulder. 

Right, the three sober girls.

These were the big drinkers of the night!

The aftermath at my table (all the empty beer and wine bottles were set under the table)!

   During the dinner I got word that Trisha and Shawn had made it safely to my apartment. I was excited to go see them but had to wait for the director to leave before I could leave (another cultural things....not strictly held to but polite).