The welcoming performance was held in at the Huanghe Hotel in Zhengzhou. The foreign teachers sat about eight to a table in a large dining room with a reasonably good view of the stage on which the performances were given. The guests were provided with refreshments including fruit, nuts and moon cakes while waiters and waitresses circulated with hot water.

      A Chinese speaking female and bilingual male host welcomed the guests as well as various local officials who were in attendance, but the night was not given overmuch to speech making.The entertainment consisted of some twenty performances of song, dance and martial arts. Several of the acts were professional in quality while others were amateur acts performed by teachers from the various schools around the city. Some of the singing acts were lip-synched. For me, the most impressive performance was staged by the martial arts students of the Shaolin Temple whose act combined elements of kung-fu fighting and dance with unrelenting action and vibrancy. Theentertainment lasted for about two hours.

     A buffet dinner followed in a different dining room featuring awide selection of Chinese foods, hot and cold. I was particularly drawn to the shrimp, but had no problem filling up on soups, fish, noodles, rice and numerous other meat and vegetable dishes offered. I found the refillable pints of Tsingtao draft beer a most welcome addition, though numerous soft drinks and tea were available as well. All guests received a box of moon cakes as a parting gift. (By Russ Tulp from America, one foreign teacher in Shengda College)