Staff Christmas Party

Last Saturday night was our KIA staff Christmas party. It was held in the upstairs room at the Bank Hotel near downtown Kunming. It was an opportunity for us to dress up, enjoy a nice dinner with friends, and celebrate the season. I should mention that part of celebrating the season entailed a chaotic white elephant gift exchange. We all brought along a gift from home that we no longer wanted, but that someone else could use or would enjoy. Eric and I brought two mugs and a picture frame. All of the gifts were placed at the front of the room and one by one each table was released to select a gift, open it, and hold it up for all to see. After all of the gifts had been chosen and opened we were told that for the next unspecified period of time anyone who wanted could exchange gifts with us and we had to do it. If we wanted our original gift back, we had to first exchange with someone else and then go find our original gift again. We were not allowed to just immediately exchange back for the gift we wanted. If we wanted to keep our gifts we either had to run, hide, or be on the constant hunt for it so we could exchange for it. The trick was that we didn’t know how long the exchanging period was going to last so we had to be aggressive if we really wanted something, or we could tag team. The hilarious ensued. One person brought a large hologram picture depicting The Last Supper. It was huge and hideous (the eyes followed you around the room), but one of our national staff wanted it so badly that he grabbed it and hid under a table! I don’t think he realized that none of us wanted it. Eric and I ended up with Dove chocolate and a box of brownie mix- a successful night, in my opinion. We sang a few carols, our Director gave a speech, and the party ended. Afterwards a group of us walked to a large mall nearby and splurged on Starbucks coffee. In the large courtyard near the Starbucks was a huge Christmas tree and some sort of dancing blue creature. We took pictures with it, but I have no idea what it was supposed to be. Just another China mystery.



The Bank Hotel lobby




The blue dot. ??