the night of the big party. i decided to take the subway to the party because i thought it would be quicker than the bus from work and that i could leave my apartment later. i left my apartment later but don't think it was any quicker than the bus.

it was also crowded as hell, now that spring festival is winding down and people are starting to come back to Beijing, i keep realizing everywhere i go that there are a lot of people here. It has forced me to become more patient and less polite, an interesting turn of events. Because there are so many people it just takes longer to do everything, and because there are more people you get used to being run into and running into.

here is a picture of myself. i still have my aversion to pictures including me and will probably refrain from posting many of the ones that i do end up taking to the blog. Something about writing a journal about myself while posting pictures of myself seems just a little too egocentric. This might be the only time i wear a tie in Beijing though so i wanted to document it. Also i was able to tie it myself without any help or instructions from the internet. It only took ten tries to get the knot right and the length almost right.

when i finally got to the party i was surprised to find that it more resembled a rock concert than a holiday party. The party was for Ms china so it included atc (where i am, they help the product groups), Ms research china, sales, and marketing. The difference between engineers and sales / marketing is always noticeable. Sweaters and jeans (both sexes) versus suits and tea-length dresses (the only dress term i know because the one i wore to homecoming had to be tea length). There were a lot of wigs for some reason, spiky Mohawk ones and just spiky ones. All in bright colors. The food was not really food just hor d'oeurves but still good. They did not have tables though or even places to set your drink while you ate. i possess the unique ability to spill on my back with only a glass never mind the plate so i ended up just using one of the food tables as my impromptu dinner table. The eating all took place in a hallway outside the ballroom where there was a stage and four gigantic video monitors on the walls.

the ballroom was what made the experience pretty surreal. While i was eating there was a 20 year old pop star on stage who had the women screaming like a beatles concert. Thank god it wasn't like a tom jone's concert. After this there was a rock band that all the people i know here listened to in college. After this they started the raffle which turned out to take three hours.

a digression, i was in the hallway while the stars were performing talking with random people. In front of me the vp of Ms china (all the groups) walked past and was mobbed by eight sales / marketing females. He proceeded to take a picture with them. i mentioned something along the lines of that is a lot of females to take a picture with and the person i was talking to said that it was because the vp and all of the females were Taiwanese. According to this person all Taiwanese are lewd and make jokes that are sexually offensive and politically incorrect. It was the first really strident anti-Taiwan comments i heard and took me by surprise. mostly Taiwan does not seem to be on people's minds (or at least they hesitate to talk to a foreigner about it).

on to the raffle, they started off by giving out random things like posters and what not and moved up to pdas and an xbox in record time. They must have given out about 30 presents in 15 minutes.

Another digression, i know the picture to the left is blurry but the important part of it is not. That woman's sweater ends at her shoulders and starts again on the arm. a fashion that seemed very popular at the party. i just wanted to let my female readership in on the big fashion here. And just think you don't even have to go buy a new sweater you can just chop a section out of your old ones.

here are the big monitors i was talking about and also a feel for how many people were at the event. Again everyone that was here works at Microsoft and is part of the Microsoft family.

in between the first part of the raffle and the final gift there was about a two hour and twenty minute break. During this break there was lots more singing. This time it was not professionals though but back to karaoke. It started off with the picture below on the monitors and everything else dark. That is the vp looking at what appears to be a Russian model. Apparently he studied in Russia. So after that had been up for a while he came out in full Russian gear complete with the hat. He than sang a song in Russia which i am guessing was understood by the majority of the crowd about as well as i understood it. NOTE: I recently found out that most older Chinese people speak perfect Russian. Back in the day all classes were taught in Russian when the countries were close (1950's - 1960's).

After he finished the Chinese laker girls rushed the stage. Alright they weren't really the Chinese laker girls but they were all wearing very short white vinyl skirts with vinyl halter tops, a fringed jacket that again only covered the arms (really a bizarre fashion choice) and vinyl cowboy hats. i made a comment about how surreal this all was and hua said that it was representing the diversity of china (tongue in cheekily). They proceeded to dance and generally wander about the stage while everyone went through a round of karaoke again.

Side note, generally i am not one to perpetuate stereotypes but there were two that i noticed at this event. One Asian women have no rhythm (or at least very few do, yachi, you are included in the do group). of the eight women on stage only one could even move her feet with the music. i forgot to mention this is 4 to the floor banging techno. if you did not try to move your body the volume of the bass would make you move at the right time. you had to go out of your way to be off beat a la steve martin in the jerk. Also taking pictures is popular. It took twenty minutes to get into the party because so many people wanted to take a picture in front of the entrance sign. everyone making a peace sign.

back to the raffle. After much singing and bad dancing they gave away a couple of laptops. i won nothing even though i had the lucky number of 886. screw numerology.