HIGH TABLES AND LOW EXPECTATIONS

I had my first Starr Hall high table dinner on wednesday. All the Halls have a high table dinner few times a year, which basically means dressing up nicely (suits for guys and dresses for girls), eating together with a few hundred other people and listening to speaches (more or less boring). Kinda Harry Potter style. The event was all in English which was nice, but I was very disappointed by a couple of things. First of all, no photos allowed be taken during the meal, which seems strange in a country where everyone is absolutely OBSESSED with taking photos. Even stranger however was the rule of no talking during the meal. Firstly, in China and Hong Kong, meals are very social events so it was weird that there was no talking. Also, how does anyone expect 500 18-25 year old students to be quiet for two hours... so talking was happening even though it was frowned upon. So I have to say I am not very impressed with the HT dinner. I was however told not to expect anything amazing of it. The HTD is compulsory, but luckily we only have it once a month in Starr Hall. Some places have one every week... on the other hand, I've heard that the other Halls' High Table Dinners have less rules, and talking is actually allowed. Wonder why ours is so strict...?

I'm doing a small trip to China this weekend, to Shenzhen (great for shopping apparently!) so went to get my China visa today. That was surprisingly painless, I was expecting the Chinese buraucracy to be somehow impossible to deal withbut was actually very pleased with the process!