Molly Malone and the Blarney Stone

Went out last night to celebrate St. Patrick's day. I looked everywhere for these but found no success, despite the fact that there is more plastic crap for sale in China than I have ever encountered in my entire life:

ps will you be my boyfriend?

After an appearance at the "Foreign Kids' Party," which is much cooler than at home since we're not all Indian engineers and Korean violinists (kidding, of course. I love the foreign kids!), we headed over to the Bandjo Bar to celebrate the evening with my Irish neighbor. Contrary to the name, no banjo music, but there was a decent cover band. I wanted to hear Alice since that's the only Irish song I could think of besides Danny Boy, but the band stuck with The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel, aka the only English music in China. We missed the presentation of the candle-lit "Wishing You a Happy St. Patrick's Day" cake but still managed to have a good time.

There were 2 rules for the evening:
-No referring to your pseudo-Irish heritage
-No asking the Irish kid about his pot of gold, lucky charms, 4-leaf clovers, etc.

I was being REALLY good, but as soon as someone successfully got Irish to dance a jig, we all decided that rule time was over.
Me: Hey, do you know Sean Connery?
Irish shakes his head in disappointment.
Australian guy: Isn't he Scottish?
Me: Oh. I thought... wait, isn't that the same thing?
etc etc, burns ad nauseam

I hope he didn't care, but based on the fact that the pictures which follow this one involved much less flag and much more skin, it's more likely he doesn't remember.