Christmas Eve in Shanghai

Here we go... I am thinking, Xmas eve, in Shanghai, by myself, this will be boring and kind of sad in the same time. But nothing is less true! Granted, ofcourse Allison, my family and my friends are nowhere close to me, but still, I was very hapily surprised.

This is what the Chinese do. They all get together in a hotel and eat and drink for several hours. They come straight out of work and spend (for their budgets) quiet a bit of money. Also the hotels purchasing department, the engineering department, etc. ask the suppliers and contractors nicely but forcefully to buy a bunch of tickets to the different dinners. This always helps.... "Really you dont HAVE to buy a ticket, but your contract is almost up and you know, maybe we have to look at other suppliers....".... Three blinks and the place is sold out :) In total we sold 1000 tickets for last night's events. The way the evening was organised was INCREDIBLE.

We had different themes in different restaurants and the place was sold out. Packed to the roof! 1000 Chinese people and 3 foreigners :) How ignorant of me to assume that the Chinese don't celebrate Christmas you would say..... I agree, they definitely celebrate. Its like anthing else the westerners do... The Chinese look carefully and then immitate what they like. And they do a VERY good job at immitating, Prada, Gucci, Hugo Boss, and now also Christmas.... The only thing is, they give it a bit of a Chinese touch, in this case....The cheesier the better!

This picture was taken in the bar where we had a Super Heroes theme. This means dress up like superman and catwomen (or something that 'kinda' looks like that and give everyone a party hat.....


The Atrium level was more a place where it was lot more quiet and where the ticket was more expensive. Looked actually very good!


Obviously China is not a christian country, so the only problem is that Christmas is not a holiday here, hence everyone has to work the next day. So in stead of long comfortable gatherings, they get together early and eat for the whole week in 3 hours. In the middle of that they are beeing entertained by a SERIOUS entertainment block. This thing was a massive production with professional MC's and everything. No joking here, seriously, this organising lady had at least 20 acts and they all turned from one restaurant to the other. Clowns, acrobats, musicians, kung fu fighters, singers, you name it, they had it! Unreal! The highlight of the entertainment was definitely the hotel's secretaries though. They sang and wre dressed in cute mini santa claus suits. Very good! They sang English Christmas songs.


These are my two secretaries Annie and Wendy :)

Then the most interesting part for everyone comes: The Luck draw!!! Every ticket has a number on it that you drop in a box when you come into the restaurant. In between the entertainment the MC draws numbers and gives away prices with obviously the big bang in the end.... A CASH MONEY PRICE OF 5000 RMB!!! people are the edge of their seats (not too far, because they really became top heave during the massacre of a food fest that just went on for the past three hours) and are breathless untill the last price goes out. Then... like the fire alarm went off, they evacuate themselves in literally 10 minutes from the hotel. UNREAL!! You really have to be carefull you are not in the middle of the doorway because you will literally be ran over by 1000 Chinese people. 9.30 the place is empty! Good for us, time to have a beer :)

All and all a very interesting Christmas eve and great to have experienced. Today Christmas day was kind of lonely, even though I spoke witn Allison this morning and unpacked the present she gave me :) it is still hard to be away from home at Christmas. Chef cooked a great christmas lunch for the expats and tonight I will be going to the home of the regional GM for a christmas gathering. Still, nothing beats being with your loved ones, something I will not have this year :( Therefore one of my new years resolutions for 2009 i decided today will be: never spend Christmas by myslef anymore, life is too short!

Merry Christmas, HOHOHO (Chinese Santa ;)