Last night Tudou.com organized a Christmas Party in its Shanghai office. The first part was a buffet dinner with lucky draw, for staff only. Some very nice prizes were given away, among others 2 iPhones and a 24 inch flat screen. At 8 PM the party itself, themed Fire and Ice started. This time it was a smaller party than usual (just for staff and some invited guests), therefore I did not blog about it in advance. The next party (in March/April) will be open to the public again, and that promises to be a huge one. Keep checking my blog if you want to join.
The party featured some big pieces of ice, that were meant for sculpting. However, people mainly used it to cool their drinks and put candles on it, so that did not really work. The combination of candles on ice, surrounded by bottles of wodka, rum, baijiu and of course beer looked kind of cool. By the end of the night the ice started to melt, so around midnight we had to remove the remaining ice in order to avoid the creation of a Tudou office swimming pool. The party also featured some acrobats, doing among others juggling and hoola hoop tricks, and of course lots of amazing somersaults. Quite amazing what humans can do, especially when they do it a few meters away from you.
Several of my Spill Group Asia colleagues attended the party as well, and of course my Dutch friends Gemme and Bouko (I don’t think they ever missed a Tudou party!). William Bao Bean and his wife Lisa also dropped by, just like musical star and internet entrepreneur Robert Vicencio. Even my wife showed up, even though she can hardly move anymore because of her pregnancy. She planned to only stay 30 minutes, but I think that she stayed at least two hours.
A nice and relaxed evening, talking to friends, dancing, watching some entertainment and drinking a couple of beers in a nicely decorated environment. Most of it was filmed, so I assume the footage will be on Tudou soon. Thanks to Evodia and her team for pulling this off in just 3 days!
Seems everyone is having Christmas and end of year parties now. My company is doing a Chinese New Year party so I’m feeling a bit left out in the cold. CNY just doesn’t have quite the same feel as a nice Xmas party.
I agree, if you were raised with Christmas parties it’s definitively a different feeling. Most international companies in China have both I think.