#166 Annual Dinner

Caterpillar Suzhou recently held our first every company "Annual Dinner". This is evidently a strong tradition in China for companies to hold a large dinner party for all of the employees which includes hired entertainers as well as performances by employees and groups of employees. Typically there is lots of drinking and toasting - say "gān bēi" or "bottoms up" and literally dry your glass.

For my contribution to the entertainment, my Chinese colleague Catherine suggested that she and I memorize and recite tongue twisters in front of the audience - she in English and me in Mandarin. We both practiced hard and performed well. To explain the picture above, one of the Chinese tongue twisters that I performed was called "Bǎn Dèng hé Biǎn Dàn". Well a biǎn dàn is that double-basket device used by the Chinese to carry everything from water to bricks. I got a lot of cheap laughs by wearing the country hat and carrying the biǎn dàn in for our performance.

Below for your reference are two of the tongue twisters that we performed. Catherine did much better than I did, even though I gave her a challenging and potentially vulgar tongue twister to recite.

Bǎn dèng kuān, biǎn dàn cháng
Biǎn dàn méi yǒu bǎn dèng kuān
Bǎn dèng méi yǒu biǎn dàn cháng
Biǎn dàn xiang bǎng zài bǎn dèng shàng
Bǎn dèng bú ràng biǎn dàn bǎng zài bǎn dèng shàng
Biǎn dàn piān yào bǎng zài bǎn dèng shàng

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's late.