You might have noticed the huge, mostly Chinese-only banner along the fence of the "VV parking lot" besides the Lamma Bistro? It's advertising a "Welcome Opening Ceremony and Carnivl" (nice big typo). It's a local carnival on Sat, Nov 27, held from 8-10:30pm in the football field.

Lamma-Por & I just got an invitation to the opening ceremony from Lammadonna personally (including roasted pig cutting. Yummy!), so I've been getting a bit more details about this event, stopping by in her office.

Like to impress your mates by speed-drinking a bottle of beer through a straw as fast as possible? For the younger set, speed-drinking soft drinks is being offered as well.

Or what about this staple of TV variety shows, the wasabi-soaked sushi-eating contest, complete with close-ups of the tears running down the faces of the contestants? Available tomorrow night!

For the sweet-toothed, there's ice cream speed-eating, a truly messy affair, I can imagine, especially as one in each pair of contestants will be blind-folded!

And between each contest, there'll be lots of Karaoke howling, eh, singing!

Good, wholesome fun for the entire family, HK-style!

I'll be taking the pictures...from a distance...

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

Should be careful if I were you - she might have an ulterior motive & you could end up as the guest of honour

_________________
My inability to tolerate your ambiguity is compounding my neurosis

Oops... have a family dinner so I guess I'll miss the Lammadonna Carnival... but in the event that I did make it to the big shin-ding, I will say "hello exclaimation mark" to yer.

Honestly, I think someone should record all the karaoke sessions and release it as a live album. It can't be much worse than the average canto-pop releases...

I wonder what colour would Lammadonna have her face painted tonight... by the way, sorry about the grose misuse of the official court colour of Pinkyism... what ever happenned to the evil cult anyway?

No need to play the guest of honour, just one of several photographers covering the event. There were so many guests of honours, about one dozen, including all the really powerful local guys, Fong Loi, Fong Kam-Hung, DAB top brass up to the recently elected Legco member, Tam Yiu Chung.

He even mentioned me in his speech to show how popular Ms Yu is that even Gwailos come to take her picture.
I was almost the ONLY Gwailo at the event, except a guest of honour, a very senior guy representing the marine police in full uniform...
Loads of pictures and the huge, constantly refilled buffet was impressive. Even Nick the Bookman couldn't resist to join in.

And I've never seen as many flower bouquets on Lamma ever as for this official office opening for Ms Yu. She was given so much face by so many people, it was just amazing. If she weren't so extremely down-to-earth, her head would be exploding now, undoubtedly being not just the most powerful woman living on Lamma, but also the most popular.

OK, dinner and then gotta run for the Carnival photo shoot, where Ms Yu will be opening... again!

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

Sounds like you've been drinking the Kool-Aid.
Someone more cynical might think she's "popular" </i>because</i> she's powerful.

My daughter wants to go to the event tonight not because she likes YLF, or even knows who she is, but because they told her at school they'll have free ice-cream.

Well, yes, the two go together closely in Chinese culture, as you know.
But there's more to it than that. Although I don't agree at all with her politics and her party, on a personal level the friendliness, appreciation and sheer familiarity she shares with her community is impressive.

Not a typical politician at all, stuttering while reading her speech from her script, hardly looking at the audience, being visibly nervous speaking in public, she's really endearing to the locals, it seems. "She's just one of us, not a sleazy, smooth-talking politician!"

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

Actually, I think she is. She's been doing this for 10 or 20 years. She knows what plays well. Politicians are good at making people like them, or they wouldn't be politicians.

Almost every project she champions is destructive, corrupt or both. Snarf up the free food; don't believe a word she says.

I think she's been using Botox since her election campaign, unless that was just an awfuly bad choice of lipstick? Anyway, how can that celebrate her 'opening' it didn't even have a front door. What will it be when its completed? Hope she's not opening a restaurant - the food looked real bad.

Well, it was her current office that they opened, opposite the future rebuilt grocery shop which they just used as additional space for the buffet. Her office has been completed at least half a year ago, but it seems to have taken a LOT of time to get all these luminaries together.

The buffet was extremely popular and quite tasty. Ask most of the locals who snarfed it up, even though few of them were invited guests. Lamma-Por & I were two of only a few people with an official guest tag.

Ask Nick about the quality of the food (Lammadonna invited him in personally) or any of your local friends, as this was a real Chinese-locals-only event. Most of the locals seem to have attended the event, or at least the buffet which went on for hours afterwards and they never ran out of the sponsored food and drinks, I think.

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.