Housewarming 9/4/12

Since we are now all moved in to our apartment, the roommates decided to have a housewarming party.  We obviously don’t know many people in China, but we invited people from our work centers as well as from our training group.  We told everyone that the party started at 7pm.  However by around 630 all of the Chinese guests who would be arriving on this evening had already shown up.  Not one foreign person would arrive until after 7 and most didn’t arrive until 8 or later.  No big deal of course, just an interesting little cultural difference to take note of for next time.  Chinese guests are not only punctual, but they arrive early in case the host needs help setting up or cooking or doing anything really.  They all said that in China it is considered rude to be on time or late, you need to be early and be willing to help. Of course in the West when you tell people about a party and a time, it is almost always the case that everybody will show up after the time, fashionably late I suppose. 

So anyway, the party was fun, we ended up having about 20-25 guests in total.  We played games including a Chinese game called “Kings.”  I would explain it but I don’t want to waste my time and it probably wouldn’t make sense anyway.  And no it is not “King’s Cup” like we have back home.  At about 1230 somebody suggested we go to KTV.  So that we did.  The house cleared out, some guests headed home while a group of about 12 of us went to the local KTV.  We sang and partied for another couple hours and then at around 3am, somebody suggested we find a 24 hour Hot Pot restaurant.  We still had a couple of Chinese friends with us so we actually did have a slim chance of finding a Hot Pot at that hour, but after walking a bit and taking a few taxi rides around, we ended up just finding a McDonald’s.  Now, as someone who really doesn’t eat McDonald’s at all, this food tasted amazing.  I never thought I’d say that about McDonald’s.   I have finally learned why the drive through is always packed late at night back home.  Afterwards we all headed back home, a few guests crashed on couches and it was the end of another successful day in Shanghai.  It is such a great city.