Bo Bing party!

Mid-Autumn Festival is upon us here in China which means it's time to celebrate in a uniquely Xiamen manner. I'm not sure exactly when "mid-autumn" falls, but it seems that any time during this two week period is good for a party. The festival is celebrated throughout China as one of the Golden Weeks of the year, meaning a week off school and work! Like some American holidays, I think people tend to forget exactly what we're supposed to be commemorating and just enjoy the time off! The way to celebrate in Xiamen is to have a "bo bing" party with friends,coworkers, neighbors, anyone at all. In fact, I've seen the bowls set up in stores and we even saw someone win a big bottle of cooking oil at the bank yesterday, but we don't know how to ask if we can play along so we just smile and nod as we do to most everything! Bo Bing is a game in which six dice are tossed into a large china bowl, in hopes that you will roll a four or combination of fours. The host of the party will have purchased many prizes, 63 to be exact! A roll of one four gets one of the 32 smallest prizes, two fours one of 16 prizes, three fours one of 8 prizes, four of a kind (not fours) gets one of four prizes, a full straight gets the second prize and four fours gets the grand prize. Clear as mud? Basically, the prizes start off quite small and build in value up to the grand prize. The history of this game has something to do with a general wanting to keep his troops from growing bored and restless while waiting for the next battle so he created a game to stimulate their brains . The prize levels are intended to represent the different levels of ancient scholars. Apparently smarter people roll more fours?! Also, traditionally moon cakes in varying sizes were the prizes. The word "cake" means different things to different people, mind you, and these cakes can be tasty but are certainly not like the type of cake we'd have at home. Now on with the party.
We hosted Gene's department from work as we were told that team-building within a work department is very important and also we like these young ladies and like any excuse to have a party! We took them to a small Chinese restaurant near our home for enough food to feed twenty people--it's just the way things are done here. We tried to explain that it would be seen as very wasteful in America to leave so much food on the table when we were finished but I guess that's just one of the many cultural differences. How a country with such a large population and relatively small proportion of arable land came to behave this way is beyond me. Though I'm quite sure this custom is just for eating out and food is not wasted so much in the home. We feasted on spicy tofu, marinated cucumber, sauteed eggplant in sauce, scrambled egg with tomato, sauteed green peppers, bok choi soup, spicy slivered potatoes, Kung Po chicken (chicken in sauce with peanuts) and some huge fish and cabbage dish. Oh, yeah, and rice! We shared orange juice, big bottles of beer and tea. All this food totalled around 22 USD!
I had purchased a Bo Bing set several weeks ago in anticipation of taking this tradition home with us to Michigan when this term is over and it's been waiting for the maiden party. I was glad to find a very traditional red and gold bowl (even though it cost more than I thought it should, it looked a lot better than the white one with bulls on it that I found later!). Turns out it's okay to use any old china bowl, but I liked the official set. Here the ladies, Jenny, Ivy and Annie are studying the rules/dice combinations that are printed along the side. Much harder to lose the game directions when they're right on the side of the bowl! In preparation for this evening along with buying the stacks of prizes and fretting mightily over them, I got a reusable shopping bag for each of the ladies so they could easily haul home their goodies. I had really hoped that they would win the bulk of the prizes and had purposefully gotten girlie type prizes: small tissue packets with cute designs on them, scented soap, toothpaste (nongender specific!), Pantene shampoo/hair care sets, and the famous red envelopes--more on this later. One of my mistakes (I'm unfortunately getting accustomed to making lots of them) was to get three different patterns of bags, one brown with swirls, one green with blue globes and one hot pink with purple globes (my girls both got blue with penguins). Apparently bright colors are good luck and everyone wanted the pink bag. There was some good-natured kidding about who got this bag and Ivy ended up with it. Part of the local lore about this game is that first-time players are lucky. Ivy is approaching the one year mark of her life in Xiamen and we had the privilege of hosting her first Bo Bing experience (ours too, of course, but we're not quite as superstitious!). .
So we took turns tossing the dice and not eating the little cupcakes I had purchased for dessert (guess I should've served some of the moon cakes we've gotten as gifts?! Actually, Jenny had told me weeks earlier that she didn't like moon cakes so I didn't want her to feel obligated to eat any). Round and round we went with Amanda acting as the prize getter. Gene was the least lucky and didn't end up with much but that's the way it should be since he is their boss and the evening's host. Jenny ended up with most of the soap and Liz got most of the toothpaste! We were told that there is a special rule about stealing prizes: the number two and three prizes can be stolen if the same roll is made after the prizes have been claimed up until the grand prize is won--then all stealing stops. Well, lucky Miss Ivy was the first to win a red envelope as second prize. We were advised to get gift certificates for the top two prizes but I just couldn't manage that without enough language skills so we put cash inside. The top prize was 300 rmb (about 45 dollars) with the two second prizes containing 150 rmb each. Many rolls and many packets of tissues later, Annie won the other second prize. We were glad since she hadn't been winning much. Along the way Gene won and lost the shampoo set and I won and lost another (also very glad for this as I wanted the ladies to get the best prizes!) Then super lucky Ivy rolled another second prize and was able to steal from Annie! I thought for sure she'd refuse but that's my Western thinking (Christian thinking? Keep the peace at all costs thinking?) So now just some toothpaste and the grand prize were left. One guess as to who won it...Ivy! Amanda chimed in "Ivy won all the money!" and we all laughed. She tucked it carefully into the coveted pink bag and was very happy! I joked that in the US we'd all say that she had to buy lunch tomorrow. Again, I had hoped each lady would win a red envelope but I guess that just wasn't meant to be. Gene said that amount of money is pretty significant (heck, I'd be glad to win $100 too!) and that it would be sort of like us winning $1,000. I think I might head back to the cute gift shop I found yesterday and stock up on hot pink shopping bags!
Here is Amanda with her two sets of hair care items, tube of toothpaste, seven tissue packets, penguin bag and the cute stuffed animals the ladies brought for our girls. The gift-giving culture over here is going to kill us, if not financially then mentally for sure as we try to sort out the when, who and how much of the custom!
Gene's paltry two tissue, one soap winnings!
The lucky winner!! (as an aside, the design on the red envelopes is usually reserved for weddings--another mistake I was sure I was making in the store, but had no way of really knowing!) All in all it was a fun night and we look forward to more parties at our home here and also to future Bo Bing parties when we return home...but don't expect lavish gifts since our home parties won't be subsidized by the company! PS--we will attend the work Bo Bing party on Saturday morning and then head right home to our apartment complex party! I won't feel guilty winning prizes at these parties...so cross your fingers for me!!