Fun

Last night we had our first social engagement since we came to China a month ago (if you don’t count a token-gesture meal out with the Big Boss in Shanghai the week we arrived, which you shouldn’t).

This was a ‘party’ given by the Less Big Boss here in Harbin, ostensibly as a belated flat-warming but really a Meet the Girlfriend event, as she’s visiting for the week. This is, annoyingly for those of us stalled in the middle of visa processing, a holiday week here. Today, 1st October, is China’s National Day – the anniversary of the founding of the PRC in 1949 – and they get a whole week off for it. All of them. Well, shops are open, builders are still building (drilling above my head as I type), but nobody else is doing a stitch of work all week.

Up until last year they had three of these ‘Golden Weeks’ as they’re called: this one, one in February for Chinese New Year, and one in May for Labour Day. The purpose of these is to boost the economy through increased domestic tourism and binge shopping and NOT, as you might imagine, to give the poor overworked Chinese a few days’ paid holiday, which they actually don’t get otherwise unless they’re lucky enough to work for a western company. But as of this year the government decided people weren’t spending enough and the detrimental impact on the economy from everything shutting down was outweighing the advantages, so they cut one of the Golden Weeks (the May one) and replaced it with a few extra one-day holidays instead. Now everyone is up in arms about it because a three-day weekend isn’t much use for visiting long-distance family in a country the size of China, and as a result this week was predicted to be the busiest October week for travel ever.

Apart from that, I don’t think much goes on really. There are quite a few red lanterns up around the place (see pic), which is pretty. I was hoping to see some kind of spectacular parade, but it seems that unless it’s a special anniversary that kind of thing went out with Mao. There might be a firework display but I’m not hopeful.

So, to return to the subject of Fun, Chinese style. Now those of you who know me know I like a party. Drinking, dancing, chatting, loud music, more dancing, more drinking, etc. That’s a party, right? Wrong, it seems, in China. Perhaps it was just that particular group of people, who were all Chinese apart from us, Boss and Boss’s girlfriend, or perhaps we’re getting old (heaven forbid!), but this so-called party consisted of nine people sitting around a coffee table picking at nibbles – rather self-consciously as the Chinese weren’t touching them – talking mainly about the weather and the best methods of cleaning hard-wood floors (I kid you not), and then having to go out for a meal because Boss didn’t have enough plates to serve us all food. We got to the restaurant about 9pm, which is considered extremely late for eating here, and everyone picked at their food again and at 10.30 all went home.

Just wait until we have our flat-warming party; we’ll show them how it should be done.