CNY - Steam boat dinner

Today, 7th February, the phd students of the business school (NBS) had an invitation to celebrate CNY together. We had to RSVP and were also told, that the dress code was Red Attire. The invitation came about a month ago, so I have been preparing for this for a long time - for a European (or Hungarian) red clothes are not a staple in the wardrobe. I bought a nice red dress in Kampong Glam a while ago and wore it today. The surprising thing was that not everybody had red clothes on...

Anyway. This was a steam boat or hot pot party, a very Chinese way of celebrating CNY, in which you have a hot pot filled with water and you use it as a communal cooking pot to cook all kinds of meat, fish, tofu, vegetables, and mushrooms in abundance.

Without further ado my pictures of the evening.

Preparations

Food

Arrival - Red attire?

The gang - the nice Chinese phd students who always include me for lunch and dinner! (Not to mention our sharing of tidbits about culture and history and politics here and there all the time.)

The steam boat/hot pot.

Food (eggs!)

Our entry/result in the table-based competition of completing 4, chopstick-sized figures/digits of 8, one of black, one of green melon seeds, one of peanuts and one of cashew nuts. Of course we won!

Our prize.

I was surprised at first, champagne in a country notorious for condemning vices, including alcohol. But of course I shouldn't have been :)

The next activity was first mixing all kinds of auspicious food stuff / items (oil, sesame seeds, rice, vegetables, etc.)

And then everybody had to throw the food as high as they could, the higher the more prosperity!

And then finally :) dinner. The pot had two separate halves, one for normal soup, the other side for spicy/hot soup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other tables, our former competition.

 

 

Eating