Toasting the CCP or something

Here we are, toasting our good health with the local Chinese Communist Party school chief (in the middle, wearing the sweater) after a meal of breaded squid rings with tomato coulis, roast eel, peanut milk, and other cool stuff like that. Meals were served either "lazy susan" style at a large table of 8 or 10 or buffet style. The advantage of the buffet style was that it usually included tags to identify the nature of the dish. At least, I assume the labels were accurate, because most of the time I had no idea what I was eating. Happiness at mealtime is not knowing what you are eating. But at the lazy susan meals - where were the more formal meals - the wait staff brought plate after plate of stuff that bore no resemblance to anything I'd ever seen before and there were no labels. It was faith-based dining. On the last evening, even the China veterans in the group had there hunger blunted a bit when squid tenticles turned up in the first soup served - long, curly tenticles with all the accessories still attached. Fortunately, there was an Outback Steakhouse in the hotel, and many of the group gathered there afterward to have a burger and fries.