A Fine Excuse To Eat: The University Christmas Party (Part 1)

I think I have two narratives here so I’m pre-emptively dividing them up into two posts. The taxonomical sorting process is based on two things: crappy phone camera vs. real camera, and food vs. performance and festivities. It’s Christmas morning and we’re heading out soon for a fine feast at Wagas (scrambled egg and gouda pide panini! cappuccino! Oh, China!) so I’ll start with the easier, faster mobile phone post.

We had our annual Christmas party on Thursday evening. If you don’t know already, I’m the lone teacher in a tiny little Sino-Australian joint venture program in the tiny little forgotten North campus of the otherwise Huge and Important Tongji University.  The head teacher in the main program (who is based over at East China Normal University) jokingly refers to my end of the program as that little brother that’s kept under the back stairs and only brought out a few times a year for feeding but otherwise forgotten. I, however, refer to it as The Tongji Autonomous Region. I rule it with an iron fist. Or perhaps, silk. I’m now up to 5 silk tunics.

So my 44-odd kids organized the annual Christmas party at a tea house down the road from the university, about a 20 minute walk alongside an eight-lane ring road, overlooked by spider-webbed flyovers.  Very atmospheric. They tried so hard. They practised for over a month and had a million meetings in the otherwise always empty meeting room next to my office. I’d walk past on my way to the loo and I’d see Jerry busting out into funky Off The Wall era Michael Jackson moves through the glass door. My kids are funky.

They sent me a beautiful invitation.

On the day of the party, I was spared the toxic 20 minute walk alongside the freeway, having been offered a ride with the local Party Leader who apparently had to attend at least the first half hour of every Tongji University celebration- at least until the MC went on stage and thanked her for attending. Then she left.

At the tea house, some of my boys broke out the flower blossom tea, as them mad cap teenagers are known to do. Chug chug chug!

The Christmas party lasted about four hours, a combination of endless plates and bowls of food being served, well beyond the point of satiety or sanity, and a lot of song and dance and theatrical skits. I got a ton of presents. I’ll tell you more about all those in the next post, as they were taken by my good camera. This post is for my grainy, no-flash paparazzi phone shots.

The phone shots are mostly food. Let me show you what we ate. I’ll tell you in advance that I tried (*tried*) to try everything, as I’d like to think I’m open to anything (at least once) but I should also tell you that I was a vegetarian for a reallllllly long time because I’m super squeamish about meat. Let’s just leave it at that.

For your viewing pleasure, a Chinese banquet.

The next day, several of my students gifted me with Christmas apples.