Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Ukrainian party vs. American culture party

Party expectations in Ukraine are very different than they are in America. It's good to know this before you arrive to your first Ukrainian party, or before you invite your first Ukrainian to your party. The first is that Ukrainian parties are ALWAYS dinner parties, and they will expect a full meal.

Arrive to the party with some sort of edible/drinkable gift, such as juice, chocolate, vodka, wine, etc. In the main room there will be a huge table in the middle set up with chairs/sofas/stools around it. All the food will be set on the table.

Food that will always be present:

* a veggie plate with slices of cucumbers, tomatoes and sometimes green peppers
* a platter of cut sausages and cheese
* at least 2 kinds of mayonnaise based salads (such as krab+corn+chinese cabbage+mayo, or cabbage+peas+sausage+mayo, or eggs+onions+cheese+garlic+mayo, or apples+shrimp+egg+mayo) (oh, and those are real salads--I called my host sister up just now and asked her to tell me the ingredients for some standard mayo salads, so I wasn't being crazy with those).
* Pickled herring
* Sandwiches, consisting of single, small pieces of bread with any of the following on top: butter+cheese, butter+sausage, butter+sausage+cheese, caviar, mayo+small fishies
* Shuba (a layered salad with the following ingredients in descending order: chopped egg, mayonaise, beets, egg, carrots, onion, and pickled herring).


Don't be fooled! Thar be fish in that thar salad.

* Flattened, fried chicken or fish
* Galuptsi (meat rolled up in cooked cabbage leaves)
* Hot chicken or cutlets
* Some hot potato dish, such as mashed potatoes
* Bottles of vodka, a pear soda which they call "water," congac or wine


The food keeps coming and you keep staying in the same place

At the beginning of the party you would choose your spot around the table. This will be your place for the entire evening, so choose your companions wisely! You will then sit, eat, and talk. That is the party. Food would come out in stages, there would be tons of toasts, you'd be totally full, tipsy, and have made great friends.

Near the end of the party, your hostess would ask if you would like coffee or tea (black or green). Along with your coffee or tea you'd get sweet dishes, which may include cake, chocolate, or cookies. You will NEVER be served sweet things without coffee or tea. According to my Ukrainian friends, they're just not tasty without tea or coffee. So your slice of birthday cake (well, they don't really do "birthday cakes") will be accompanied by tea. :)

That's the standard Ukrainian party.

My parties, however, are nothing like this. As an American English teacher, I like to have parties that are high on culture and low on drinking. My parties are a great place to practice English, learn a little about American culture, and do some fun activities! My parties in Ukraine have been very successful, and they're something I plan to continue in whatever country I'm in, so I thought I'd share my party prep ideas.

Step One: Choose a theme
This step is crucial. If you're doing a holiday party, the theme chooses itself. Go all out and embrace that holiday. If you're doing a birthday party or a non-holiday party, it's important to select a good theme. It will drive everything else: the music, the food (to some extent), the costumes (if you're doing that), the games, etc.

My theme this year is Flora and Fauna.

My party is a costume party. Everyone is expected to come in costumes and bring food and drink to share. In Ukraine none of these are typical, so I make sure to tell them via sms. I also teach them the word "potluck" :)

Step Two: Choose the decorations/your costume
For my party this year I'm dressing up as a lounge jaguar :) I have my awesome jaguar-print pjs, will do makeup and make ears and a tail to go along with this and I'm done. For decorations, I bought some self sticking, dark green scotch paper that I will cut into long, wavy grass and stick on the walls, along with flowers, butterflies, etc. I'm making a bumblebee pinata, and the like.


First time doing cat makeup! Pretty darn good if I say so myself!

Step Three: Choose the activities
For me, this is what really drives things. This is the part I very much enjoy, and something that makes my parties stand out. If you have an awesome theme and awesome decorations, sure you can just let the party be, but if you want something great for non-native speakers, something that will give them a chance to practice English/learn about American culture, this is super important. Plus, it's fun for native speakers as well.

* Songs. I like to pick some songs to teach that fit with the theme. For my V-day party I picked "The Riddle Song," "Love Me Tender," "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" and "All You Need is Love." I print lyrics, my friend plays guitar, and we all sing together. For my Flora & Fauna party I think we're going to do "Jeremiah was a bullfrog," and not sure which else yet.

* Crafts. This is something new for me, but it worked really well at my Valentine's day party. I gave everyone the tools for making V-Day cards. That way we could hang out, people could chat, work on crafts, and have something to show for their night. For the Flora & Fauna I'm doing origami!

* Games. I like doing things like scavenger hunts or pictionary or taboo. For V-day we did a kissing game--one partner had a bright lipstick on and had to kiss their partner on the face as many times possible within 15 seconds. We then counted kiss marks. Another game was for a partnership to open a candybar together with their hands behind their backs. :)


The girls are counting how many lipstick marks Daniel has on his face

* Food. By asking people to bring food/drinks to share, you ensure that you will have enough food, but not TOO MUCH food. I like to provide something theme-y like heart shaped cookies or red/pink foods for V-Day, or traditional Thanksgiving food for T-Day. You can do fun things like serve eggnog or spiced wine at a Christmas party, green beer at St Patty's day, etc. The more "traditional" or theme related, the more fun it is.
* Etc. For Halloween I'll do things like bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving and the like. On Valentine's Day, we composed proverbs about Love--I provided the word LOVE+a random word. They came up with gems like "LOVE is a HOUSE I want to live in always" and "LOVE is like WINE--it makes you feel good and you want more."

I teach people the word "mingle" and show them how to do it (really, they don't usually do it amongst themselves). I also occasionally like to have prizes to encourage certain behaviors. Want people to have fabulous outfits? Give a prize for best costume. Want people to put lots of effort into a game? Give a prize to the winner. It helps to let people know that ahead of time. Also, if you really want everyone in a costume, provide for those who have come without costume--for my party I'll have animal hats/masks for them to wear.

I make sure to tell people early, then a week before, then a day or two before. People are very forgetful, so it helps to have an initial invite and then two reminders. I also don't have drinking at my party. If someone wants to bring alcohol, they can, but I ask them to bring nothing stronger than wine, champagne, or beer. I like showing them how to make mimosas. :)

That, my friends, is something that takes up a fair bit of my energy in Peace Corps. So far I've thrown about 6 of these parties, and they get better and better. At my Valentine's day party I even had my English club put on a play! :) As you can see, it fits Peace Corps's 2nd goal very well, which is to teach host country nationals more about America and Americans. I put a fair bit of time and myself into these parties, and I've even seen results--I went to a girl's birthday party and she'd pushed the table to the side of the room and had activities! It was really great. People were surprised, but they had a great time.

Other things I've learned: If your party is big, it can be a great idea to have responsible friends take on this role: emcee, dj, bartender, even host. If you do want to have a bar, I recommend making a SINGLE party drink based on a SINGLE kind of alcohol. For my "high school stereotypes" party in America, we made a punch. For my "runway models" party in America I made the mistake of wanting a full bar, and as a result, half my budget went to alcohol. If I did it again I would serve just mimosas, and invite people to bring other alcohols. I also like to give people the opportunity to do different things. If the space is large enough, I like to have a quiet room for conversations, a louder room for games, a dance floor, etc.

Enjoy!