2017 Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rooster

 28 January 2017

Happy Chinese New year 2017! The First day of the Rooster new year is here!

As usual, the Chinese New Year is a big deal here in China and at the plant with our annual meeting and show. The talent show...with my almost 30 years of experience with Michelin, this is a phenomenon that is unique to China! After all of the business is done and the last video or PowerPoint presentation is finished, then we go into stage show production mode. Our employees really look forward to this meeting (can you believe it?..who among us looks forward to a meeting?) 
 It's true! This is one meeting they don't want to miss. People volunteer months in advance to perform something..singing, dancing, magic show, combination sing/dance etc. They rehearse on their own time, rent costumes with the financial assistance of the union all in order to entertain their colleagues t this one special time of the year. It is quite special! About 3 years ago, I was talked into singing a song and I challenged myself to sing in Chinese...tough but I did it. Now, it has become an expectation...so this year, someone helped me pick out a very meaningful and popular song with the title "I wish you peace". In the past, I have learned to say the words, but didn't really know the meaning...this year, with my increased study of Chinese, I learned the meaning and of course that made the words easier to remember and put some feeling into the song. I had one small condition this year and that was that the entire management staff must get on stage with me...so this put into action a whole different level of performance...I sang and my direction team danced with the Chinese red lanterns and the highlight of the show was they surrounded me with their lanterns and formed a heart as I sung the words "I wish you peace". It may sound hokey pokey, but it was really touching to me and the audience.
At the same time of the singing and dancing, they organized a video that combined many of the safety events and training we did at the plant in 2016 and played it in the background on a huge screen. I had never seen this video playing in the background until I saw the recording of our performance. Below is a video of the performance taken by someone on the audience. I don't know exactly how long we will be staying in China, but I have a feeling this show will be hard to top...

Here are a few photos of the business meeting...words and even pictures do not do it justice!

We use a community building for our annual meeting...good price, good seats and good stage.

Sarah doing her speech in Chinese...first time ever...I had to read it, but I did it!  My goal is to be able say a speech from the heart...I still have alot of improvement to make...

Even in the business meeting, we have fun.  This is a picture of part of a home-made video with a caricature of me and one of the operations manager at the plant.  Pretty amazing I think!

Sarah with the Plant Safety Committee

Sarah speaking at the meeting (Probably still in Chinese...I didn't hold cheat sheets for the other portions of the meeting!)

 As mentioned earlier, after the business meeting was over a whole new portion happens... below are just a few pictures of the show!

2017 Show some of the Site Services team

My assistant Meng Jie is the beautiful lady with her hand on her hip

The plant Purchasing manager and Finance Manager also get into the act

All of the performers together on stage at the end

The General Manager is also a musician/entertainer..secret it out now!  Thank you God, Mom and Dad for the gift of music and the courage to perform

Sarah surrounded by the plant direction team singing "I wish you Peace" in Chinese

 https://youtu.be/yiV3BS2AGcw. 
I hope the video comes out...if not, try the link to my Youtube page (my first attempt at this! ) And if that doesn't work well, next time I see you I can play it for you on my phone!

After the annual meeting, I still worked some days before taking off for the National days of travel in China that surround the Chinese New Year! Rod read in the newspaper that over 3 billion trips would be taken this year...it really is amazing!  The plane/train tickets are much higher at this time, and there is a mass of people, so we have found it's just better to stay home!   On Chinese New Year's Eve day, we went to spend time with our Chinese family friends and had a lovely dinner and exchanged gifts. It is tradition in China that close friends and family exchange "Hong Bao" (Red envelope filled with money) and eat dumplings at midnight (the first and last meal of the years) and set off lots of fire crackers to drive the evil spirits away on this day. We typically don't stay up for eating dumplings or shoot off a lot of fire crackers, but we do give the Red envelopes. This year for the first time ever, our Chinese family prepared a "Hong Bao" for each of us...it was so special! They wanted us to have the experience of a real HongBao even though they cannot afford to share a lot, they shared so much. I will always remember my first "Hong Bao" in China to celebrate the year of the Rooster with the Zuo family in Shenyang.

Rod with his Hongbao

Zuo Min (Daisy) and Rod at the Zuo's home for Chinese New year 2017...the year of the Rooster

Sarah with her Hongbao and "Mama" Zuo

Sarah with "Baba" Zuo.  The hand gesture is the number "6"..it's popular this year!

Rod and Sarah getting ready to eat the Hot pot stew and share our New Years eve day together with the Zuos

Baba showing off his scarf and Mama in the background

Rod having fun delivering the gifts!

Daisy showing us how to use the incense burner set they got us

So, it's another Chinese New Year come and gone...we will continue to relax and enjoy our time together and we thank God for all of our blessings and faithful friends and family as we start another year here. 


Blessings to you all until next time!
Sarah and Rod in Shenyang, China

Location:Pedestrian Street,Shenyang,China