In the Party Mood

Last night we went to our first Chinese Christmas party. Some of you may be really really shocked because this is our second Christmas here. Last year, however, we had just moved to our present city, so we didn't have any parties to go. I'm not sure what I expected but as usual, expectations never turn out. It ended up being a really nice party.
The soiree of the season was held at a Brazillian BBQ--yes, I know, the words Twilight Zone have already been suggested. It is a really fancy restaurant that is located at one side of a really nice hotel...and as usual, directly on the other side is a slum. Now, we had been to another Brazillian BBQ place in town (yep, there are more than one!) and were less than excited about the food. But the food at this restaurant was very tasty! The best beef I've had in a while, really tender too! Tim tried the camel but said the flavor was a little odd, imagine that.
With all that said, we made it past all the intestines, donkey meat, and unidentifiable items to have a very lovely meal. We went on to the social graces of the night. The school officials came around to toast all of us foreign students. The whole "cheers" and clanking of the glasses is a big deal here. But there is a little more too it than just throwing one's glass up and hollering "ganbei!" Now there is actually a proper ettiquete, which there probably is in the States too, but I'm ignorant of it. The higher the ranking the higher the glass is head, but it is always polite to defer and hold your glass lower. So with two people, each trying to be the more "humble" of the two, a lot of glass bobbing goes on as someone is always trying to move his or her glass lower. We hope we made it through the evening without seeming too proud or without causing anyone to lose face.
I have almost forgotten to tell you all of the most entertaining (by far!) part of the evening. At some point, the restaurant switched over from Muzak to a real live sax player. Here we are in the middle of China in a Brazillian restaurant watching the lounge-singer version of a sax player wearing skin tight (no, the pants could not have been tighter) pants, a leopard print shirt and a Crocodile Dundee hat rocking out to Kenny G. I have to add this, of course, to compete with someone else's Christmas party that had a Cruise theme--complete with Gilligan's Island (wannabe) cast and Karaoke (yeah, we avoided Karaoke yet again--crying kids can be such a blessing!).
I hope everyone else at home is enjoying Christmas parties, seeing friends and being with family. Enjoy all the lights and smells of Christmas for us. Tim bought me a sweet pre-Christmas treat--Cranberry juice! Wal-Mart just happened to be selling it today, how cool is that! So I'm off to sip a little!
If I don't get back to blog again before Christmas...MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!