Invite your best friends, ask about 3000 students to volunteer, use your dance, drama and art academy to perform, let the president deliver an impressive performance as a singer and close the party with decent Chinese fireworks. These were the ingredients for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Chongqing University that I attended together with rector Gerard Mols, Louis Boon and Xiaoyan Zhang. It was a big party on Sunday and on Monday and in particular the Monday party was special. We were guided to a sort of football stadium on the Chongqing campus. The stadium was packed with about 20.000 people, both on the grandstand and on the ground. The people that were sitting on the ground appeared to be students whose main task was to applaud after every speech. The program included 11 speeches and together with the extensive introduction (“please welcome rector Mols from Maastricht University”, applause and a shot of Gerard on the big screens), the session lasted for about 3.5 hours. A minor detail was the rain. It stopped pouring but there was enough to get wet, in particular if you were sitting on the ground. After the speeches the students on the ground disappeared and an opening-of-the-Olympic-games type of show started with Chinese style disco dancing, classic Chinese lantern dancing and at the end of course the Chinese dragon dance. After this party we had a “meeting” with one of the board members of Chongqing University. And this is something very special in China. For every visitor a time slot of 15 minutes was planned. In our meeting we congratulated Chongqing and handed over our presents: a beautiful impression of the buildings of Maastricht University and 2 scholarships. The Board member thanked Maastricht University for coming all the way to Chongqing and for the presents. Thereafter the photo-shoot session, end of meeting and leave the room. We are definitely back in China.