High fashion, top Cantonese cuisine and gifts of silk scarves were all part of the show as the first lady played host to the spouses of World Bank financiers yesterday.
At the Regent Hotel, Betty Tung Chiu Hung-ping managed to circulate around all the 57 tables at which her estimated 570 guests lunched for three hours.
Thrust into a high-profile social life less than three months ago, Mrs Tung received high praise for her efforts. 'She walked around the tables and spoke to everyone, she's clearly very good at chatting in English and must have been very busy doing the rounds,' said Dogg Palsdottir of Iceland.
Cuisine included dim sum, sweet corn soup with seafood, marinated chicken and a dessert of mango pudding with Chinese tea and petits fours.
Entertainment mixed the traditional with Chinese chic. Elderly craftsmen and calligraphers fashioned gifts in the lobby while angular models sauntered down a catwalk in locally designed fashion wear, their backs and navels bare.
Gifts included Chinese silk scarves with the traditional double fish and tripod motif, and performers included music students from the Academy of Performing Arts.