My last Shane Christmas 2014 (moved from old blog)

 "It's the Shane Christmas party." "OH NO IT ISN'T!"

So as is the tradition in language schools, in China at least, all holidays that aren't Chinese are exploited for extra money and recruitment/publicity opportunities. 

Good for the school, terrible for any teacher who might actually like a certain holiday. I, for example, love Christmas but three Shane Christmas parties and I am beginning to rethink this absurd idea. Christmas means to work longer hours, to be forced to do shows for the locals entertainment and to give presents to already spoilt rotten kids right? NO? I must still be bitter from someone high jacking my Christmas. 

So as not to mess with the tradition of destroying all Christmas spirit in teachers, we were told there would be a party and we were to perform a show at this party. And so the idea of the pantomime was born.

We found a copy of Cinderella on-line that was all in rhyme (yes that was intentional) and we divided up the workload. Somehow I ended up in charge of costumes, which with 5 guys in dresses was a mammoth task, and was to play the Fairy Godmother. All the guys in the office played the girls in the show (Cinderella, the ugly sisters and the step mother) while two of the Chinese girls played Prince Charming and his buddy Herald. 

Rehearsals began, lines were learnt (sort off) and it occurred to us what a stupidly large task we had taken on. It took us weeks of going into the office early on a Wednesday to get to a semi decent level of confidence and to stop us panicking about not being ready. 

The party was on a Friday night, so classes were cancelled for the week. The party was at the Expo centre, which is miles away in the north of the city.

The room was massive with a huge stage and runway down the middle. When we got to the party room we were told we had to do a fashion show with some of the kids. In our school there are only two female teachers so we were told we had to go first. I spent ages stood on a runway with two terrified students clinging to me. Oodles of fun! 

After the fashion show we had 7 minutes to get into costumes and get ready for the panto. 
We had a minor problem with microphones, as in we didn't have any, but the kids didn't seem to notice. We had loads of kids sat on the front of the stage taking hundreds of pictures and they seemed to love all their teachers in dresses. 

After the panto we had nearly 2 hours to kill before we were allowed to leave so we all got a little bored. The rest of the show was a mess of speeches and terrible dances, including one from McDonald's who sponsor the school. 

Thankfully this was my last Shane Christmas party as I am to finish work in a few weeks.