String Tying Ceremony and Party

They threw us a party with all sorts of kareoke and a special string tying ceremony, which is used to bind people together, to drive out the negative energy, and promote blessings. The old fella tying the first string on my wrist chanted for about 1000 hours while incense burned on top of these unbelievably elaborately woven reed structures(Made by the students by hand). Then we ate way too much and had a show of the high schoolers doing traditional dances and playing traditional instruments. Pretty cool. And every table had a bottle of whiskey in the middle which is very big here and very much a part of school functions- not for kids but for the adults whether or not kids are present. It was not quite as nice as the sports banquets at RDHS with Cathy's lemon squares, or as fancy as the Kiwanis induction ceremony I presided over last year in the cafeteria where the freezers kept kicking on while I was speaking and the kids couldn't pronounce the words on the prewritten scripts provided by Kiwanis, but hey, this is not a rich and powerful nation that is number one best in everything after all!