Fundraising the Chinese way!

Over the past month I have had the opportunity to be a part of the planning team for a Fundraiser Dinner, Auction, and Variety Show for 200 people. Not only has it been a fun and exciting process, it has also been a challenge since 95% of the planning team speaks only Chinese. I rely heavily on the one Chinese English speaker to translate the things I need to know and even with that I feel like I am always missing things. I was also planning for a culture I still don't know everything about. A culture where it is OK to make last minute changes. A culture where the master schedule will be changed 20 times right up until the event starts and maybe changed two more times during the event. However, in the end the event was a success and I can now say I have planned a large scale event in a foreign country!

The evening started with a 100 yuan a head dinner with 50% of the profits going to help earthquake victims in Dujiangyan. Last week I learned the money will be specifically used to buy children there warm winter clothes. After dinner was the Variety show. This was my baby. I recruited people from our group to preform eight different acts. There was everything from singing to dancing to skits. I made sure everyone was prepared and had all the appropriate items on stage for their acts. Along with our eight acts were eight Chinese acts. One of them included these adorable children carrying candles (only in China!) and then doing sign language to a song.

My favorite act of the night was five guys from PLU (self entitled Pespect after a miss spelled hat one of them owns) doing a choreographed dance to 'Nsync's "It's Gonna Be Me". Not only did I enjoy watching this dance, but I recruited the 5 guys and the choreographer (my lovely roommate Erin) and scheduled and ran hour long evening practices. The guys blew me out of the water with their ability to learn and perfect an entire dance in only four days! They also had alot of fun along the way and made me laugh as I watched them turn into snooty, little divas. The night of the performance they did great and bounced back from a skip in the music right at the beginning. They made me sooo proud! They now have intentions to preform their dance on the Great Wall in Beijing. We will see how that goes over!

We ended the evening with a celebration for all November birthday (like me!). We had three cakes and everyone with November birthdays came on stage and blew out the candles as others sang Happy Birthday in Chinese and English.

The entire night was a huge success and we made almost $3000 USD total. That will go along way in helping Children in the earthquake zone!

Birthday Video, try 2!

My birthday video! Didn't upload with the last blog so here it is!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

I had an amazing 21st Birthday in China celebrating with all my amazing friends on the trip. I also loved all the Birthday wishes and cards I recieved from home!

The day kicked off with half our group pulling themselves out of bed and stubbling into my room for mid- day mimosas--China style-very sweet orange juice and barely alcoholic sparking wine. I then preceeded to get ready for the day before a few of the girls and I headed out to get our hair and make up done. We found this great little hole in the wall place that did our hair and make up for only 20 yuan (a mere $3USD)! Of course it was all in the bright eye shadow, thick eye liner china style, but we all looked fabulous regardless. We then headed back to the dorm where we all applied temporary tattoos, got dressed, and met up with the rest of the group to go to dinner.

We went to dinner at what I like to refer to as the "Rain Forest Cafe" of China. It is a giant fun, lively, Chinese chain. From the minute we walked into the restuarant I knew it would be a fun night as I observed the giant fake trees covering the ceiling and the singing and dancing staff. Before our food arrived there was a small Birthday cake (my first of 3 I recieved throughout the weekend-shown below) on the table and the singing and dancing moved over to our table. They pulled me up and sang "Happy Birthday" to me in both chinese and english (see video) and then perceeded to get the whole group up and dancing around the restuarant. They played american pop songs on their guitars and drums as we fearlessly danced. They even brought out a bar to do the limbo with. It was a fabulous dinner

After dinner some of the group decided to carry on the dancing at some local dance clubs near our dorm and danced the night away!

It was a fabulous birthday in China and I couldn't have asked for more! Thanks to everyone who helped make my special day really special!

Asia Styled Reunion

They say it is not about where you are, but rather who you are with. That was the case a couple weekends ago when I was able to meet up with my best childhood friend Christy in Hong Kong.

We spent allllloooonnnngg time trying to pick a location to meet. We thought about here in Chengdu, in Taiwan (where she is studying), Shanghai, or Hong Kong, but in the end it came down to a location that was easiest for us both to get too.

Just because I got to spend the weekend with her it was AMAZING (Hong Kong did have some pretty cool things to do too). It is so crazy how we both ended up studying in Asia the same semester. Year ago we talked about studying in Australia together our junior year, but that was just a far out idea. Then during a phone conversation this past spring we discovered we actually would be studying in the same part of the world this fall. How crazy is that!?!? So it was immediately decided we would do whatever it took to have an Asia styled reunion.

Lucky for us the weather in Hong Kong was HOT!! We spent the first day at the beach on Hong Kong Island. It was hot and sunny and the water was perfect for wading in. Christy's friend Camille joined us for the weekend too! The unfortunate thing about the timing of our trip was I broke my toe the night before I left for HK so I was limping around all weekend and unable to do any of my favorite jumping pictures!

The food in HK was DELICIOUS!! Since it is an international city you can get all different kinds of food. It was a great break from the sichuan food I eat everyday. I enjoyed eating cantonese food (wontons and dim sum), bubble waffles, sushi, and lots of thai styled noodles. Christy and I compared chopstick skills and competed to see who was the messiest! I won by having at least five whole noodles dropped on the table by the end of the meal. I really am good at using Chopsticks, I just drop things...often.

Christy had a friend from OSU, Erik, studying in Hong Kong that we meet up with. He even let us stay at one of his friend's apartments for two nights, which was a great break from the teeny tiney hostel room we spent the first two nights in. We went to the new James Bond movie with Erik and all his friends. He introduced us to his roommate Micheal (pictured above) who we hung out with several times though out the weekend. As we were in Hong Kong one week before my birthday and three days before Camille's birthday we went out dancing to celebrate. Christy and I bought little black dresses to wear and Micheal showed us all the hot night life spots!

On our last day in HK we took a ride on a giant cable car. This was a big deal for Christy who is usually not a fan of any type of rides, but we went on it and actually enjoyed it!! From our car we saw the ocean, the airport, gorgeous green hills, and the largest outdoor bronze sitting Buddha in the world. When we got to the top we planned on walking up to see the Buddha close up, but the weather suddenly turned cold on us. So we only had time to get a few vegetarian dishes for lunch (it was the vegetarian world food festival---How perfect!) and a hot drink before we froze and had to head back down the mountain. We bundled up and spent the last evening doing last minute shopping at the Ladies Market, watching High School Musical 3, and talking on the roof of our apartment. It was a great last night and it was soo hard to say bye the next morning. We made plans to meet up over Christmas break and know we will be talking about the weekend we spent in HK together for the rest of our lives!