Chinese Murder Party - Hoo Hung Woo
Richard and Maria sent out invitations to their chinese Murder party close to a
month before the dinner date.
These included our character descriptions and
costume suggestions.
I had actually planned to host a chinese murder party about
8 years ago but had ended up crashing my car and it had never happened. I still had
some of the paraphernalia I had bought for that and gave it to Richard to contribute
to the atmosphere.
My costume lent itself to some extravagance and
creativity - a Chinese Warrior General!! I of course left it until the last day to
put the costume together and was still making it until the minute before we left. The
idea for the helmet I really stole off a guy I saw at Baileys bar after the Super 12 final,
he was wearing a red bucket cut out as a crusaders helmet, I looked up some
chinese warriors on the internet and started hacking out a design - It was easy to cut through the
bucket even with just a pair of scissors because it was just a thin 99c one from The Warehouse.
I glued a steam pudding bowl to the top and wrapped a couple of loops of chain around
it so it didn't look so plastic. It all got spray painted silver. Next I scraped a flax
leaf until it was down to the fibre, bound it with plaited flax and mounted it as a
horse hair plume. The coat of mail was more difficult - I spent hours working with
chain and bamboo, making armour but it just looked plain stupid so with 5mins till
the party started I picked up a bit of chicken wire and molded it a bit and came to the
realization that the 5 minute effort looked 50 times better than the 2.5 Hour trial.
The evening was great fun - the confusion generated by the names (Hoo and Hao etc)
just added to the fun and laughter. The Oriental delivery meal arrive
during the game and I hear the delivery guy had to look twice. As the
evening progressed the characters developed the plot thickened and basically everyone became a suspect. I failed miserably guessing who (or Hoo?!?) the
Murderer was (I shan't give it away here).
Here are some pictures of the
costumes and the evening meal:
The hosts - Richard and Maria as Hoo Li-Gan and Jade Owl
Andy and Sally as Pen Ta Gon and Silver Bell
Us (Hugh and Clare) as Shang Hai-Shek and Willow Blossom
The setting (or sitting) including the previously unseen Joyous Flower (Corrin).
Absent from photo is Hao Dee-Doo (Aidan) who was taking the photo.
