A Two Banquet Day: Part I

So, I have spoken much about the Chinese Banquet. Today, Tim and I got to experience a TWO Banquet day. A very long day in Harbin, but another experience to be sure. I have broken it up into two posts so that it is easier to read, but it all happened on Wed, Jan 25th:

Our day started as usual with a 6:45 am wake up and 8:00 am Skate. At the end of the skate at 9:00 we were rushed into a car and over to a local school for the opening of the “Charles Wang’s School For Hockey Dreams”

Essentially, as I understand it. Charles Wang, the Islanders owner, has donated some money and equipment to local schools to help bolster hockey and learn to skate programs in the schools. Giving kids the opportunity to try and experience ice hockey.

So we were taken to this immaculate school and brought up to the third floor to a waiting room. There were many important people there from the school and the Harbin sports associations. I took a picture of the room with its very high end décor as we would be in the room three separate times during the morning.


After waiting for a bit, having some tea and meeting some of the English teachers (the teachers were native Chinese who spoke and taught English, so you are not confused) at the school, we were taken to a small auditorium for a presentation. In speaking with the English teachers we found that school was for kids aged 6-10. The school housed 1500 students about 300 in each grade. The classrooms have about 40 kids in each. They go to school from Monday-Friday from 8 am – 5 pm.


So, back to the auditorium. As you can see in the picture below, the important people sat up front, including the Headmaster and Mr. Wang (from the Islanders Office in Harbin, not Charles Wang). They signed and exchanged documents and each spoke along with a few other people.


Also, one small girl spoke. She was an amazingly polished speaker for such a young girl and seemed very excited about what was happening.


After the speeches it was back to the waiting room again. More chat with the English teachers and some of the other men there. It got pretty smoky in there as almost everyone was smoking. After another little wait, we were taken outside into the courtyard of the school where there was an outdoor skating area. Basically, snow banks around the edges and someone had frozen water on the ground.


The young kids were all skating and playing hockey on the “rink” and there were many onlookers and some press.


We got out on the ice at met with some boys and girls hockey players of varying ages and the press took photos and video. At one point the firecrackers began going off behind the rink at the archway entrance to the courtyard and scared a few people.


It had actually turned into a beautiful day at about 15 ºF and sunny. A great day for outdoor skating and Tim and I were bummed we did not have our skates with us.

After the skating, we were whisked back into the waiting room for a bit. After some waiting it was time for a Banquet.

We walked down the street to the banquet and passed a mosque, or as Pei Ying called it “ a church where the people don’t eat the pork.” It was a bright baby blue so I had to snap a photo.


Banquet one was spit into three rooms as there were too many people for one. We were in a room with the Superintendent of Harbin Schools, the Head Master, the Director of Harbin Winter Sports, the The Director of all sports in Harbin, Mr. Wang, Mr. An, and Pei Ying and a couple of other sports deputies.

As usual, there were many toasts and people from other rooms would come into our room to toast with us also. It was a good day for Ice Hockey in Harbin. After the banquet we headed back to the training center to rest and prepare for the after and PART II of our two banquet day.