CNY Embrace

Chinese New Year in Sheffield, yet another excuse to head down to Embrace to PARTAY!! The Chinese New Year Extravaganza (what's with parties and big words? One would think that you'd be too drunk to say any word with more than 1 syllable) was hosted by our very own Massoc, in collaboration with Sheffield Oriental Parties and Chisoc. The 12th of Feb night certainly belonged to the Oriental people out there, as the throng at Embrace felt like Chinatown on a busy day.

The party began at Bia Hoi (as usual), with people starting their night off with the 2-4-1 drinks there (cheap AND good! *White Russian, a personal favourite of mine). As the night wore on, people started making their way towards Embrace, not feeling the cold as much now, as we had had our pre-party warm up. It was a typical Friday night, and you could see practically the entire Sheffield population in the streets, and of course, the usual people Already drunk and stumbling along from club to club. As we neared Embrace, the line of people outside proved how popular the CNYE was, and the queue for the cloakroom once you got inside was further proof, going up the staircases nearly to the entrance of the main room. Half of the people probably spent more time queueing for the cloakroom than actual dancing, poor them. (Of course, our ever-hardworking comm - Choo, Jinn, Malcolm, and !Ganesh - stayed outside and braved the cold in an effort to make the event a sell out! After a few hours, they finally made it in, and were greeted with the fruits of their labour - the long line as mentioned before. Ah the irony.)

The dance floor was pretty empty at the beginning of the party, with breakdancers making sure that the everyone kept off the floor, lest they wanted an elbow or a foot in the face. As the music played on, the urge to dance overcame the fear of getting in the way of the breakdancers, and the crowd swamped the dance floor. Pretty much everywhere you turned, you were greeted by someone else's elbow/shoulder/head (depending on what height you were).

And the music played on.

As the night wore on, Paul took to the stage, and wished everyone a roaring good time. He and his assistant threw stuffed toys from the stage, and CHAOS ensued. Drunkedness mixed with want propelled many to abandon all forms of civility, and soon people were pushing and shoving to grab a toy. (This author was elbowed in the head by some guy lunging for a stuffed animal as if his life depended on it.) The madness finally ended as he ran out of gifts, and left us all to dance once more.

All good things must come to an end, thus the party finally wound down as the club ushered many to its doors. The wait for the cloakroom was a long one, but tired feet and elbows did not overcome the satiated buzz one gets from dancing (and drinking, for some) the night away. The walk home was an eventful one, as the tipsy people provided entertainment for those still sober. Walking into poles, breaking out into random song, and chivalric piggy-backing (reasons why guys go to the gym) were the highlights of the night, as we all trudged home, tired but satisfied, and finally ready to say good night.

Bia Hoi Social - 11th December 2007

About 30 enthusiastic members turned up for this social at Bia Hoi, currently Massoc’s most favoured spot for a night out. Mostly arriving in groups from 8.45pm onwards, we found four tables reserved for our members and mingled around while enjoying the free crackers and other treats being handed around by the shooter girls.

We were not allowed to stand around doing nothing for long, however, as our committee, which had turned out in full force, handed out sheets of papers with pens and announced the first challenge of the night. We were to write down the names of as many people as we could, along with where they were from, which course they were studying, and what year they were in. The person who was able to get the details of the most people would win a bottle of wine.

It was a challenge clearly designed to get our members to interact with each other, and soon everyone was involved in some way as even those who were too shy to take up the challenge were being approached by others keen to take home that alluring bottle of wine.

Having warmed up the atmosphere with the first challenge, the committee then divided all those present into three groups, and commenced the second challenge. Each group was asked a series of trivia questions to which we wrote answers on a piece of paper, knowing that the group with the highest number of correct answers would win a box of chocolates to share amongst themselves.

By the time the results were announced, the committee had thwarted several attempts to steal the box of chocolates, most of which involved hiding the box under a thick coat and proceeding to walk outside. However, even those who did not win were not left wanting, as the chocolates were shared among everyone in the end.

All in all, it was a good night for Massoc, and a new experience for most of the members who attended, as this social encouraged an unprecedented level of interaction between members newly introduced to each other.

International Food Fest

International Food Fest (dubiously coined "World Food Evening" this year) took on a whole new twist this November 17th, as 20-odd people discovered the architechture of our iconic Petronas Twin Towers and realized the amount of dried leaves one needs to build an Attap (Atap?) house. Choo and Jinn and Ganesh and Raymond AND Malcolm could have easily deforested the entire Hillsborough area of Sheffield during our construction process, if not for the impressive breeding rate of those weed-looking leaves. Every stall jumped on the opportunity to overprice their foods, on the premise that these are "traditional" dishes that you "can't find anywhere else"-us being especially guilty of that as our Nasi Lemak and Rendang were sold for £3(=RM21=9SGD). The entire hall was packed like a can of sardines with non-existent lettuce and I was made to wonder what the point of having an air-conditioner was when all I breathed in was recycled Loxleys air.

As I struggled to manoeveur my way from the Giant Elephant stall to the Chinese Dragon one, I caught sight of the cheapest food, around 30p for a serving of fish eyes yoghurt. A budget mindless me wasn't about to indulge in that single dish for the entire evening though its exotic taste did amuse me.

The Octagon where the dessert stalls were had this strange, eerie ultraviolet lighting that inadvertibly made everything else - the miniature Petronas Twin Towers included - glow. Not that we minded, for it strangely made our stall look even more worthy of a trophy and we deservingly (without any trace of bias) bagged home the third place.

And then it was good.

Ladeda, the final episode on The Demolition Of Our Stall was marked with much joy and relief that cleverly masqueraded an underlying tinge of sadness as our Attap House slowly reduced itself to the few wooden planks we nicked off some garage area outside the Arts Tower. I might try to see this whole experience as a learning curve and that one way the curve might go (it could go several ways apparently) is that this hyped up event, like all other good things in life, has come to an end.