High Table Dinner

Graduate House held its first "High Table Dinner" of the 2005-2006 academic year last night. As Student Representative and Chairman of the Residents' Committee, I was seated at the head table along with members of the management committee, the Master, and the guest of honour. The guest of honour was a boring stuck-up lady, director of some Taiwanese cultural office in Hong Kong. She gave a boring speech about how culture and politics are separate matters; I retorted by saying that Taiwanese people can simultaneously feel more Chinese than people in China, but at the same time be increasingly assertive of non-Chineseness, and ALL of it is politically motivated and sometimes even government-sponsored.

Dinner was nice. It was nice to have a free dinner, and pretty tasty meat. I had the New Zealand lamb steak, which was a good size, grilled perfectly, and well-seasoned. A lot of people had the seared duck breast, but everybody who did complained that it was undercooked.

Anyway, I think High Table Dinners are a good idea. Every residential hall and even some faculties and departments have them. They're formal affairs in which residents, hall tutors, the master/warden, the management committee, and guests of honour gather for dinner. Apparently, some halls have monthly High Table Dinners, while others have them annually.

Next year, I hope not to have the honour of sitting at the head table. It's hard to have conversations with old farts, especially when I can see that everyone else is dining with fellow residents. And sometimes, I feel it's harder to make a good impression than it is to NOT make a BAD impression. I think I held my own last night, but it was painful. Oh, I used the wrong knife and fork for my salad. Sigh..