Emblem Night 2007

On Saturday evening, the company that I work for held its Emblem 2007 party, during which employees with 35, 30, 25, 20, 15 and 10 years of service were celebrated. The emblem party had a 70's theme, which I tried in a small way to be a part of; I wore a floral print shirt. Some people liked it, while some people likened it to Brokeback Mountain!

But anyway, the party was different from last year. Gone were the foreign singers. This year the organisers wisely invited a few local artistes to perform; Maria, Fairuz and the Seeds were there. Maria and Fairuz had this really powerful voice, but it was becoming a bit too common. Too many singers nowadays have this powerful Datuk Sri Datin (and whatever else) Hajjah Siti Nurhaliza-type of voice.

There was also a functional (as in departmental) performance competition. Enough to say that the winners really deserved to win. As of my own function, many words had been said and I am not going to add more to that. It is more important to note that the performers made a lot of effort to be on the stage to perform. Kudos to them.

The emcee was one to forget. Too many blunders and at one point he was tellling this rather crude joke; he made the banquet hall fell silent for a while. And he did not know how to improvise. Many times when things did not go to plan, he would just stand there on the stage, not saying a word.

For once, no one from my own department won any lucky draw prize. Somehow our magic potion did not work that night! It seemed that less lucky draw prizes were on offer this year. And also, not doing the lucky draw live kinda killed off the excitement.

A few highlights from the night:
1. a YMCA rendition by the managers. It was nice to see them sportingly putting on wigs, american indian chief's headgear and hats, doing the YMCA (from the Village People). I thought my own functional manager looked like Brian May of the rock band Queen, with his long curly wig/hair.
2. a face-off between 6 best-dressed guests. One of them made everyone laugh with his gyration! But it had to be spoilt by the emcee who announced the wrong person as the winner.
3. the performance by the winners of the functional performance. It was very creative and thoughtfully conceived, despite having to practise for 3 days (if you believed what they told you! :) ).
4. the door gift. a gold-plated (?) celapa, which was a traditional Bruneian container, used to store betel leaves and nuts. (see the forth picture to know more about the celapa)

I did not bring my camera to the emblem party, so the pictures below were taken at home.