I was at New Heights at Three on the Bund to hang with an old college friend visiting Shanghai. While not a fan of the pretentious Bund lot, I still had a good time chatting and, like No Links, consuming poison. While no giraffe head or other costuming, I wear far too little for the weather I ended up enduring both before and after the party (that didn’t even have a countdown, and the Bund fireworks weren’t exactly breath-taking either). It was impossible to get a taxi that night, and I ended up taking refuge from the bitter cold at the Westin for much of it.

And, unlike these other private individuals, I won’t ignore your question Fauna! I spent new years in pubs and then a club with a couple of friends. Would rather have, I dunno, sat around in the drawing room, smoking cigars, playing chess, discussing something unquestionably intellectual, but I lack the sophistication. Instead, consumed poison and jiggled about to some deafening music, which is exceptionally boring, unless you’re doing it in fancy dress of course…and are somewhat encouraged by the alcohol. I had hoped to go as a giraffe man (to be modelled on the guy in the shanghai metro), but didn’t have the time to manufacture the head. Went as ‘Ottoman King’, in other words, guy with fez and finely embroidered robe.
Yeh…pretty uninteresting… now I know why others didn’t share.

If anyone’s interested in what overseas Chinese are up to, my British Chinese blog is up for Best Culture Blog in the international Weblog Awards. Although there is a category for Best Asian Blog, I can’t see any other Chinese entry in the other groups — I’d be delighted to learn if there is one. Or more.

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-culture-blog/

My one’s Madam Miaow says …