The Annual Gala
Spring Festival holiday is China’s biggest holiday celebration. Ben and I normally go to Shanghai to spend the holiday with his parents, but they came to Kunshan this year. You see, each year our university has an Annual Gala (年会) to review the passing year and celebrate the coming one. It is a big party that includes faculty, staff, and their families. A few students are also invited to give performances. This is the first year that Ben’s parents asked about this event and if they could attend. We were excited they wanted to join us, so this year they came to Kunshan for the Lunar New Year.
An Annual Gala is a common event at this time in companies and other institutions around the country. It normally involves an elaborate banquet dinner where more food is brought to the table than can possibly be consumed, from cold dishes to hot meat and vegetable dishes to dessert. The last dish normally brought to the table is a plate of mixed fruit. It is the signal that no more food is coming and is normally accompanied by a sigh of relief from guests who cannot fit another morsel of food into their overloaded digestive system. Time is usually given at the beginning to just focus on eating. For instance, at our Annual Gala, guests had from 4:30pm to around 6:00pm to socialize, take photos, and eat. There were then some words from the Chancellors before a night of performances, games, and prizes.
This year’s Annual Gala had approximately 500 attendants, and Ben would be one of six Masters of Ceremonies (MCs) that night. The preparation for this evening was an exceptional undertaking. For Ben personally, he came up with two game ideas that the Annual Gala committee liked. This, however, meant he had to design the game materials and test them. I, as his wife, also became involved. It amazed me how much work went into just designing one game and trying to address in advance anything that might go wrong when one actually had 10 or more participants on a stage.
As an MC, he also had to prepare a script in Chinese and English for the performances he would introduce, the games he would lead, and the other transitions he would be involved in. For example, he had the lucky job of announcing when people could start eating. I, again, ended up being quite involved in writing the script. Ben would occasionally look at me and say, “So, how would you say that in Chinese?” And I would give him a rye look, like “You’re asking me?” We ended up having a lot of funny coming up with different ideas for introducing an act.
The evening of the gala, as mentioned above, would start at 4:30pm for guests and ultimately end at almost 10pm. MCs, however, had to be at the event site at 1:30pm. Performers like me needed to get there at 2:30pm. The university provided shuttle service, make-up service (for MCs and performers), and much more to ensure everything ran smoothly. I turned down the option of make-up myself, but Ben was not given an option. When I saw him that afternoon, I had to resist the urge to laugh out loud. His eyebrows had never been so, uh, “pronounced.” Later that night, I had to give him my make-up remover and soap to help him get it all off.
Despite all the hard work, Ben had a great time as MC and committee member; he also did an excellent job. My performance with the DKU Band was fun, and I won the “Guess that Song” competition. I am not very good at guessing songs, but I am good at reading the lips of people who are yelling the answers at the contestants on stage. I also had a great time with his parents and my colleagues who sat with us at our 10-people table.
New Year’s Eve
The Annual Gala occurred five days before the Lunar New Year’s Eve. In preparation for the realbig night, Ben’s parents brought a full suitcase of food to our apartment. It was a good thing our fridge was pretty much empty when they got here because I do not know where we would have put all this food otherwise. Beyond all the food they brought with them, they went grocery shopping every day leading up to New Year’s Eve. When they weren’t out buying food, they were busy preparing it. This vegetable had to be washed, that had to be cut, the meat had to be prepared. It was important that our meal included a fish dish that we would purposefully not finish. We would eat the top half and leave the bottom half for the next day. 年年有鱼or 年年有余is a wish that there always be a surplus or a good harvest year after year. Literally, “Year, year has fish” or “Year, year has surplus.” So, it was bad to start the new year without fish. Ben’s parents labored in the kitchen all day to give us a lovely New Year’s Eve dinner.
After dinner, we settled down to watch the Spring Evening or春晚that would be broadcasted all over the country at 8pm; this is another important tradition for New Year’s Eve night. Spring Evening is the ultimate Annual Gala. The MCs of the evening would be in different cities all across China, bringing traditional performances from each region. Songs would be sung in multiple languages and “dialects”[i]and elaborate choreography would accompany them. This includes acrobats and Shaolin temple warriors, which are always my favorite performances. If you ever come to China, I would recommend seeing an acrobatic performance.
The cultural and sometimes patriotic performances are then interspersed with skits meant to send messages about issues in the society. For example, one skit discussed the situation of the people who “送外卖” (deliver food). These people have very difficult jobs. They need to deliver food to your homes within a preset time limit (often as short as within 30 minutes) no matter the circumstances. Keep in mind that they do this delivery on a moped, with only a helmet and rain jacket to protect them from the elements.
If they are late, then you can give them a poor rating. In fact, you can give them a poor rating for any reason you wish. Perhaps the person asks if you can come down to lobby to pick up your food instead of taking it up to your apartment. This can be a reason someone gives a low rating, when the delivery person may simply be running low on time. If the elevator is broken, or the building has no elevator, these people have to walk up many flights of stairs to complete their job. Unexpected problems and weather conditions are not factored into the system. So, one of the skits was about how the society should be more considerate of these people and really think before we give someone a low rating.
Other skits discuss issues of family; for example, the loneliness of the elder generation whose children are too busy to visit home very often. Still other skits warn against the scams that are often perpetuated against the elderly. Ben’s parents experienced one such scam last year.
These days they are tourist companies that will offer people of Ben’s parents’ generation trips to nearby locales for fairly cheap prices. Many people will go thinking that this is a good deal. They are retired and are not doing much else, so a bit of travel would be fun. However, normally near the end of the trip, they will be forced to listen to hours and hours of a talk about “health supplements,” for example. They will then be pressured to buy these health supplements at outrageous prices, even by US standards. I’m talking about a couple thousand dollars for a box or two of supplements. The very polite tourist guides of the day before may not take you back home unless you buy some of their “products.”
These kinds of scams will be presented in a skit that is funny but has a very clear message of warning. Ben’s parents were fortunate to get out of their situation without spending any money. However, the tourist guides even had the nerve to show up at Ben’s parents’ home after the trip, still insisting they buy some products. It was only after Ben’s dad threatened to call the cops that they were left alone.
So, the Spring Evening is a mixture of celebration and propaganda (and I use that word without a negative connotation). This TV broadcast is probably the most watch show across the country, and the government utilizes that to promote values of harmony, diversity, family, patriotism, and ethical behavior. The show starts at 8pm and continues well past midnight. Neither Ben, his parents, nor I normally stay up that long though. This year was no different.
One difference was that this year was my first year living far enough away from the center of a city that people could use fireworks. The fireworks were exceptionally loud and would continue well into the morning. However, I can sleep very well with nose, so I had no difficulty sleeping that night despite the racket. The next evening, Ben and I went out for a stroll at a nearby park, and we got to see a lot of fireworks being set off. It’s loud but also very romantic.
We had a wonderful Spring Festival this year.
**The featured image is of the beautiful blossoms that signal the coming of Spring!
[i]I put the word “dialects” in quotes because what are often called dialects in China are actually completely different languages. For example, Ben’s dad speaks Shanghai dialect, and it is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin or Cantonese, two languages people commonly think of when talking about “Chinese.” Without getting into a linguistic lesson, I would just say that “Chinese” is just an empty word that refers to a number of very different languages spoken in and around China. I only know how to say “hello,” “good-bye,” and “Happy New Year” in Shanghainese.
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