Archive for the ‘business’ Category
Did your holiday party sound like this?
December 18th, 2007
OK, so the BJ office party makes free use of merry-making accouterments. Makes sense; they’re all made here.
This was my first Beijing holiday party, and my expectation was that, like everything else in the world, this cultural phenomenon would be heavily internationalized and sterilized, taking many cues from US culture.
And I was partly right. Aside from the noisemakers, it was like… A FULL-BLOODED WALL STREET OFFICE PARTY FROM THE 1970s, with a more equal mix of the sexes and Chinese characteristics.
As the glasses of Australian Shiraz washed down the běijīng kǎoyā (北京烤鸭), it became clear that the American-style sexual harassment lawsuit has yet to make its influence felt in cháoyángmén (朝阳门). No puritanical HR police here. The personnel department was more likely to be leading the frathouse “go-go-go-go-go!” as another full glass went down the hatch in traditional Chinese table-to-table style peer-pressured drinking.
But then again, maybe there was a little teetotalling influence from across the Pacific, because when we got to KTV, the harder stuff was gone and we ended the night on merely an endless stream of beer bottles.
Is this just my company?
[update just minutes after posting: had 潮 instead of 朝 in 朝阳门. oops]
