Melbourne Cup Chinese style

My Ausie hat which included dangling grapes, a boomerang, a koala

with chopsticks and a rose. All stitched to a fabric hat.

The Aussies had to celebrate the Melbourne Cup here in China. There are 6 Australian English teachers that spend time together here in Shaoxing. We do have quite a bit of fun, but this event caused quite a lot of mirth with us, especially as the Chinese students thought we had all gone mad.

We ran a Melbourne Cup Sweep - so all paid 5 Yuan for a horse. We managed to get some other foreign teachers and 2 Chinese staff to participate, so managed to "sell" all 23 horses. We have found a new bar in what is known as SPT Street, and we had arranged to meet there at 5.30 pm. All were invited to wear a hat.

Now we are quite limited in what we have to make our milinery creations, but non the less we managed to come up with a few things that were, well, unique.

There was a "copy" of an old Emperors head dress, and the rest of it was well, difficult to describe. One hat was modelled on the Sydney Opera House. Many of us did not don our head gear until we arrived at the venue - and when we did we had curious staff and students watching through the window.

"What on earth are the teachers doing?" Some laughed and smiled at us through the window, and when we went outside to greet the latecomers, (after one or two cocktails for courage) there were more laughs and curious looks.

We played a tape of the BIG RACE, and divied up the winnings for those who were lucky enough to have found themselves "on" the winning horses.

A few more cocktails, and a few laughs and some of us, complete with head dress went to the canteen for dinner. I think the canteen staff were more amused than the students who looked at us in awe!

Even today I was questioned about it. Students asked what festival we were celebrating and we found it hard to get them to comprehend that 24 horses raced around a track and we were celebrating this event.

An American teacher asked why we did not organise a party to celebrte the US Presidential elections - which were of course being held at that time. I just said that we Aussies were not interested in the US elections, and anyway as the only US representative it was up to him to organise it. We Aussies will celebrate almost anything with almost anybody.

I bet he does nothing though...................