Time to put on the dress, wear the heels and eat well! We had our High Table Dinner tonight with all the Lishengians from the 5th (the boys) and the 6th (the girls) floor. There were probably around 300 of us in the student cantine which was decorated with pink ribbons on the roof, silver and gold and long tables with white cloths, red napkins and some little red decorative glass stones. It looked really pretty and the dark lighting made a very elegant atmosphere. The invitation said that the dinner is going to start at 6.30pm so being punctual Finns (Juha, Niina and me) we got there on the dot just to see that there was no one there yet! We should really know by now that nothing, absolutely nothing, in China starts on time. You can always be at least 30minutes late and no one will notice a thing! But being there on time we had to wait around for a bit less than 2 hours to get to the dining area from the little lobby they had made in the next room. So that kind of sucked.. But at least they had some drinks there (non-alcoholic of course...).

People are waiting in the lobby before the dinner.

The drinks were all some kind of juice or soda mixers. Could have done with some real punch...

We had a 4 course meal which included Norwegian salmon as a starter, seafood minestrone soup, then you could choose from 3 main courses. I had the beef and pumpkin lasagna and then for dessert we had tiramisu and tea or coffee. They actually served red wine as well but the glass was so tiny that you couldnt really get anything in there! Most of the Chinese people didnt even drink their wines.. The exchange table asked for 3 more bottles :D The dinner itself was really nice and I really enjoyed it! Some of the Chinese students seemed to have quite a lot of difficulties with using a knife and a fork though... It was so funny, there was one guy who just had no idea what he was doing, he kind of managed to cut his food with both utensils but then he ate everyhting with his knife and pushed his food on it with the fork. I understand that it can be very challenging, I mean it hasnt exactly always been easy with the chopsticks either... :)

The dining area with the nice decorations on the roof.

The salmon starter

During the evening there were many performances as well. The whole night was hosted by 2 girls and 2 boys who spoke in turns in Cantonese and English. So you could actually follow the flow of the event. Sometimes the things they say are just so funny like when people were coming to the dining room they were saying "Can everyone please take your seat and be quiet!" So polite, ah :D In the beginning they had some music performances and short speeches which were followed by the meal and some more speeches... Unfortunately mostly in Cantonese... The guest of honour was some famous film director/media person from Hong Kong who was talking for like 30minutes (all in Cantonese) which was a shame as it would have been nice to listen to what he was saying. Instead I made animals out of my napkin...

Some of the exchange students from Lisheng. Looking very sharp in the suits boys!

The hosts

These guys sang really well! Especially the guy, apparently he won the Hall Singing contest a few weeks ago. Go Lisheng woo!!

The hosts interviewing the guest of honour after his speech, still in Cantonese... so more napkin animals..

In the end it was time for a group photo with the organizers and guests.

And some other guests (mostly exchange students from Finland, Germany, Korea and USA)

And of course the most important guests of all, Niina and Sofia!

When the evening ended the hosts said that there will be a dance in the next room, so we went to have a look:

Quite an afterparty eh? ;)

So we just went to bed after watching the Chinese people trying to dance... oh it was so funny! They really had no idea what they were doing, taking huge leaps from one place to another and being completely out of rhythm. At least they tried :)

Everyone signed this big poster and I think its gonna be hung on the wall of the common area tomorrow. As a gift everyone also got a decorated coloring pen that had a crown on the end of it and a little decorated wooden holder for it. A nice little something to remember this nice evening.