Business and Party: Should they mix?

January 12, 2017
10:45 pm
Beijing, China

I forgot to post a blog yesterday, but I really want to talk about two things tonight. The first is what happened yesterday (a team building party) and the second is something Abba put on my heart to share (and a cool coincidence). They are very different, so they don’t make sense to go into the same post. This is the first post, so please feel free to read this and then continue on to my next post for today or just read one. It is completely up to you.

So, first. Yesterday, I went to a team building party my school put on to celebrate the Chinese New Year. They rented out this villa with many bedrooms, a big kitchen, a great room with two large tables, a pool table, and an old-school video game, a KTV (karaoke) room, a majong room, and a room with an Xbox and a card table. The bedrooms were interesting. They were completely beds. There were raised platforms that spanned the entire length of the room with mattresses, pillows, and sheets on top. Consequently, anyone who slept over was sharing a bed with another person, although they’d probably never touch. Everyone from the office was invited, except for TAs because they’re usually young high school and university kids just working a part-time job.

We had a ton of food and lots of alcohol. The food was wonderful. We had grilled meat and veggies in the afternoon, probably around 3:30, and hot pot that night, around 7:30 or so. There were also plenty of snacks laying around throughout the party. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. Many of my female (and a couple of male) co-workers spent plenty of time in the KTV room, providing interesting entertainment for the entire house. There were many friendships brought to the edge of a cliff through hands of UNO upstairs. Brian and I both learned to play pool. We made it through two games without breaking anything or getting the 8 ball in too early, so I’ll call that a success.

The alcohol, as I expected, turned out to make things somewhat uncomfortable later that night. Although I have nothing against drinking, and enjoyed a bit of beer myself, I do believe that there is a limit to how much alcohol a person should consume in a given period of time. This limit becomes even more important when you’re at a work-related function. Consuming alcohol at parties seems to be a fairly common practice here, but I’m not a particularly huge fan. I mean, seriously, you’re at a party with your boss and your boss’s boss. You still want to make a good impression and that usually don’t happen much when you’re drunk and slurring your words. That said, most of us at the party were very responsible. There were a few individuals who grew louder and more giddy, but not too bad. Unfortunately, the last activity I was present for was a game of “Truth or Dare.” One of the things about living in a foreign country is that sometimes things get lost in translation. When our coordinator decided to play this game, she was unaware of what it usually entails for adults in the States. That said, I don’t really know much about it because I’ve never been to a party in the States, as an adult, where that game has been played. Most of the truths and dares were pretty harmless, but there were a couple that just made everyone cringe. As a result, my enjoyable, fun day came to an embarrassing and awkward end (Note: I was not the one doing the embarrassing and awkward things).

Because I had an open door today, and because things were getting a little too alcoholically impaired, I headed back to my apartment with Brian, Lambert and Lizzie. I’m really happy I did. I got a great night’s rest in my own bed and was able to accomplish a few more chores around the house. I headed to work early and prepared for my open door, which went very well.

Here’s all for my first blog of the day, please continue to my second.

Thanks,
Kristen