The Office: Holiday Special

(Or, The Company Christmas Party)

Of all the topics that I imagined would be the first from my blog series from home, this was the last. Tonight, I went to a Christmas party/dinner with my dad's coworkers at a local steakhouse. As these things usually go, it involves a bunch of coworkers, the majority of whom could care less about the other and just want to get the goddamned thing over with (please pass the wine), a few set meal options to aid in efficiency, some corny games and lots of awkwardness. Whether I'm in China or America, I swear situations like this simply follow me.

As we Yeungs are prone to doing, my father and I arrived fashionably early. Of the 40 expected guests, only a small crew of 5 ladies were seated in the upstairs group room. I don't know what's been put in America's water, but for many American white ladies over the age of 50, something awful happens to them after that special time known as menopause. They shrink to toad-like dwarf size, asses ballooning out in all directions, creating a weird human blob in the shape of a pear. With a short, dyke-y hairstyle, lots of makeup, and bad perfume. There must be a secret manufacturing plant for these lasses somewhere in the Midwest, the heart of obese housewife hell. Five such examples of this species were already knocking back martinis when we walked in. I could immediately sense my dad's inherent Chinese awkwardness in social settings click on to alert mode, immediately adopting the nervous loud-talk to make it seem like he was happy to see these people, while at the same time frantically screening the area for a separate table to claim so that we wouldn't have to sit with them all evening. After the required pleasantries of "Hello, nice to meet you" and "Really?! THIS is your son!? I don't believe it, he's so white and you're so yellow!" we retreated to our table and started drinking.

As the rest of the employees arrived, I realized that I was in an episode of The Office. Albeit a less enjoyable one for lack of any Pam doppelgangers. First of all, the place was packed with Phyllises. Tall ones, short ones, ones with hats. Fat ones, fatter ones, a heffer in a moo-moo covering her enormously large ass. These ho-hum broads would benefit from sprucing up a bit to emulate their queen, Phyllis, who is, believe it or not, far better put together. Oh the horror.

To serve as the peanut butter to the tubby, fem-jelly of this suburban PB&J nightmare, the dudes were no less interesting. To be fair, all of these folk were polite and nice. But something about seeing a bunch of fat, balding white men with faint strains of rosacea and nauseating neck ties just rubs me the wrong way. By all accounts, wearing a tie that depicts each of the Twelve Days of Christmas should be reason enough for execution. Call these the Bob Vances of the bunch, but just not as interesting. After having my poor hand mangled by a steady stream of these chuckling behemoths, I was momentarily thankful to work in an environment where the majority of the male employees are the same size as yours truly. If I see one more Christmas-themed tie wrapped around another ham-neck, I may snap.

During the evening's quiz game (oh, fun!), the MC showed pictures of famous pop culture celebrities who "resembled" one of the colleagues in attendance. The bald white dude with the pointy nose? Dick Cheney. The fat bald guy with big eyes? Homer Simpson. And what about the token black guy in attendance, the only person of color for miles around (my dad not included)? He's gotta be the dude on 24! I'm sure he didn't feel awkward at all... At one point, the MC noted that a certain audience member looked like George Washington, which is all fine and dandy except for the fact that she's a woman. So, so flattering.

No amount of wine could have prepared me for the Michael Scott Award for Awkward Social Antics winner. Sitting at our table (Dick Cheney's wife), this overweight little creature could only be described as a typical Boston-area working class white lady who thinks she's down but really doesn't have a clue. I don't know how else to put it, because at certain points, I swore she was some distant relative on my mom's side. You know which one: the aunt that introduces me as her "Oriental nephew."

Upon hearing that I was in town on vacation from China (and repeatedly insisting that I could not possibly be my dad's son for lack of resemblance), she happily told the table that she spoke some Chinese.

Me: "Oh really?!"
Her: "Yes!" *smiles* "Shay-shay!"
Me, pausing: "Oh, xie xie! That's great!" *trying not to roll eyes at this retarded wombat*
Her, reaching into the cobwebbed recesses: "What else? Oh, and ah-wheez!"

I looked at my dad, he looked at me, we didn't have a fucking clue what she was trying to say.

Her, again and again: "Ah-wheez!"
Me: "Erm...."
Her: "You know, 'ah-wheez' is how the Chinese say 'Louise'. You know the Chinese can't pronounce 'L's, so that's why they say 'ah-wheez'!"

At this point, I almost fainted. Was she seriously telling us what "Chinese people say"? Did I miss something in my upbringing, during my collegiate training, and in China? And she didn't stop there.

Her: "Oh yeah, back then, everyone knew I spoke Chinese. So whenever one of those Chinese ladies called [our company], they'd hand me the phone to talk to 'em!"

And then, Lord help me, she said in the chinkiest accent you can imagine, eyes squinted, head bobbing up and down like a Hollywood coolie or rickshaw man, "Ah-so, mee-sa liking ask'a qwestion ah la wah so ching chong chang" or some other fucking bullshit, with the straightest face possible as if she really knew what she was talking about. As the table went silent and my neighbors' jaws dropped, I turned to my dad and said "I need another drink." Behind me I heard another, "Ah-so!"

Having received a valuable lesson in how to speak Chinese, we were rewarded with coffee and dessert. As soon as the last bite was swallowed, my dad and I swiftly made our way to the door. Although I was happy to share a meal with the token brother, our current vice president, and one of the most ignorant people I've ever had the fortune of meeting, I just wanted to escape this suburban corporate Twilight Zone. My dad was happy and proud to show me off to his cronies and I was happy to be put on show-and-tell, but one more tutorial from that idiot would have made me lose my dinner all over her face.