MBA Blogs @ Manchester Business School

Wow! This past week was intense. Lots of deadlines and closure on our community projects. It’s great to get past this hurdle, but there are others coming right up, including M&A and Strategy, and of course final exams.  The sense of accomplishment is great, especially when you achieve them with your teams. On Friday night, our class celebrated the closure of our community projects at the Midland Hotel. A nice finish to a hectic week. Adventures in the Northern Quarter followed for some of us, which involved a screening of a Spike Jonze short film (I’m Here) on top of a parking garage. Simply amazing, both the night and the film. However, I’m getting off topic here, so to really emphasize the awesomeness (urban dictionary entry #6) of Asian Night on Feb. 18th, here are a few pics:

The event was held at the historic Yang Sing restaurant situated in Manchester’s China Town; the perfect venue to host the 170+ that showed up to party with the Asians of our MBA class. The Asian students got together in the weeks leading up this event and organized an evening of engaging cultural activities for our classmates. A lot of planning as well as rehearsals for performances went into making this night a memorable one, so a big THANK YOU to all of the people that helped make this happen, including the support we received from MBS.

The night started off just after 7pm and food was served shortly after. It was Cantonese buffet, mmm mmm good   It was scrumptious. Around 8pm, Kate (Korean) opened the night with an introduction, and then Li Chen (aka Chen Li – Chinese) played a presentation on the big screen introducing Asia to the crowd.  Then, we had an amazing solo performance by Hazem (Jordanian) on the Oud (a pear-shaped string instrument – thank you Wikipedia), which was followed with country presentations in Western/Middle Asia. Then, we ignited the crowd with an amazing tournament of Jan-Ken-Pon (Paper, Rock, Scissors) to the tune of the ultimate old-school Nintendo game, where the loser had to down a sake bomb! I hosted the tournament as the main MC and ref. We had some great SAKE BOMB TIME moments. It was East vs. West, respectively on each side of the bracket. For the record, Ted (Taiwanese dude with the ultimate expression in the last picture) prevailed as the winner and represented Asia properly at our own party. Here is my favorite pic from the tournament:

Instant Classic.

After this cultural intermission consisting of East/West drinking concoctions and shenanigans, we resumed with a fun performance by the Thais and Indonesians, who performed a dance to a popular pop song. Then, we played presentations of Southeast Asian countries, which was followed by the second intermission. This time, however, there was no drinking involved, just pure glamor as we showcased some amazing outfits from various parts of Asia. We hosted a catwalk with The Killers Mr. Brightside remix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxyWTiJIvTI) in the background, which was simply perfect. Although The Killers drowned out Suu Mei’s voice, she still did a wonderful job highlighting everybody’s outfits   Here is a photo of the ensemble:

For the final hurrah of cultural presentations, the Koreans kicked it off with a showcasing of their country followed by some Tae Kwan Do action. Then, Japan followed suit with their own presentation and a Karaoke performance of Hokuto No Ken. We finished the night with two final performances. First, with Tai Ji (Tai Chi) from the Chinese (as seen in the first photo), and then with a pop dance from the Taiwanese, where the crowd joined toward the end. Afterwards, DJ Paul took over and the crowd meandered their way to the dance floor to the Black Eyed Peas.  We danced for the next couple hours, the Asians in exultation for a successful evening.  Likewise, the party continued for some that ventured off to the Northern Quarter. I was simply too exhausted to even consider. Can’t wait until next year’s party organized by the 2012 class!  After an amazing Diwali Night in the Fall and this awesome Asian Night, I would like to just say good luck to the Latins and Europeans for their celebrations in the Spring

A few pics for fun: