Steelcase Guangzhou Annual Dinner

One custom which is practiced throughout Asia is the Annual Dinner. Once a year each office or department gets together for some food and fun and a chance to recognize fellow workers who have attained years of service awards. The Guangzhou office generously invited us to attend their dinner and join in the festivities.


We were fortunate enough to have dinner the night before with our two hosts, Purple and Gerry.

It is not unusual for Chinese to take Western names using colors,, seasons, weather terms and flowers.Thus Purple chose her name because she loves the color. (The sales manager in Beijing is named Thunder.)


The evening started with a toast followed by dinner and games.

The group was divided into two teams and then the fun began. The first game was a juice race. Each team chose three members to play. There was a bag of eight oranges and three glasses per team. Participants had to cut the oranges in half and squeeze the juice from them. At the end of the allotted time the juice was poured into one glass per team and then measured to see who had the most. Our team won!

Game two was another three member game with each team having a bag of short straw pieces and bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. How they found Pabst in Guangzhou I'll never know. The beer had to be drunk through a straw but none of the pieces was long enough to reach. So each member had to "build" a longer straw and take a turn drinking the beer. Ken was on loan to the other team and Rommel was one of the contestants for ours. It was a lot of fun to watch.

Our team won!


The final game was Pictionary. Everyone played on each of the teams and believe me when I tell you that playing a word game in two languages simultaneously is extra challenging. For example, the first word for our team was three words and Bonnie drew an apple and a heart. Boy were we surprised to find out it was "apple core." When Ken asked about it being three words, it was pointed out that it is in Cantonese - and the heart of the apple is its core. I was chosen to draw the final picture and breathed a great sigh of relief when "art gallery" was on my list. I can't imagine trying to draw midwife or twinkle for two languages!

And our team won!


As you may have noticed everyone at the dinner had their own dragon headband in honor of the Year of the Dragon. It was a fun night and a great chance to meet many new friends. We are grateful for such opportunities.