Some call it corn toss. Others call it corn hole. And yet others call it The Sport of Corns.

Whatever the case may be, The Irish Volunteer will host the second annual charity corn hole classic on November 22. Things got competitive last year as several well-known food and drink purveyors joined the fray, including teams from Two Guys and a Pie, The Box and The Brick.

Think you have what it takes to throw a bag of corn 30 feet? Onto a board. With a hole in it? Then get a teammate and sign up for this year’s twelve-team tournament by emailing Trish Smith at trishsmithus (at) gmail.com. The entry fee is rmb100, with all proceeds to Maovember.

The Irish Volunteer will also be doing some drink specials, including “Pickle Zachs” by chef Zach Lewison. and we’ll have more on that soon.

Here is a collage of photos from last year’s event:

Maovember 2014 is off to a strong start with 元12,560 of cash turned in during the first few days of the month and more expected this week as pin sellers deliver funds.

The total includes 元2600 in pin sales (each pin is 50 yuan / 500 mao),  元3040 in proceeds from drinks and games at the launch party at The Corner Melt on Sunday, and 元6900 in donations. That last amount includes individual donors who sponsored one or more cataract surgeries at 元800 each and a 元1300 donation by Andy’s Craft Sausage and the Hash House Harriers.

This year’s mission is to fund at least 25 cataract surgeries and it looks like that will easily be surpassed.

The donation total will be updated every few days. You can find it at the top left corner of this site. If you are viewing the site on a mobile device, click the “+” sign.

Paddy O’Shea’s manager Paul Rochon will host Maovember parties on November 7 and November 28. Below are the details and an interview with Rochon — a Maovember 2013 veteran: the photo above shows him at one of last year’s pin-selling parties — on bars and ‘staches.

The Event

The November 7 ‘stache bash at Paddy’s will feature three kinds of shots.

There will be shots on goal as a hockey net will be placed outside so sports fans can try to score against the goalie from The Oilers. Get three shots for 50 yuan.

There will be shots in hand — well, to be honest, they will be glasses — as East Meets West sponsors wine, including a winter-warming mulled option, at 25 yuan.

And there will be a shot at prizes, with tickets available at 20 yuan each for the November lucky draw — the grand prize is a magnum of Champagne.

Proceeds from all three activities go to charity as do earnings from new Maovember 2014 pins, priced at 50 yuan. Wear yours in Paddy’s during November and get a 10-percent discount on drinks.

The Questions

You’re a French guy with an Irish bar in a Chinese city and have customers who hail from Canada to Columbia, from Spain to South Korea. Have you ever considered working for the United Nations?

Ah! If the United Nations offered a job where you can watch your favorite sport, drink for free and have an awesome time, night after night, I would maybe think about it… not!

You’ve got one of the best classic music video collections in town. Which performer has the best mustache in your opinion?

Frank Zappa! Maybe that is why he was the best of the best?! Mustache inspiration!

You guys are also planning a “mustache bash” on November 28. What can people expect at that party?

People without mustaches can pay 20 yuan to get one drawn on by our lovely volunteers. We will have an election for Mustache King and Mustache Queen. We will also have a special “moustache show” by The Cosmopolitans cheerleaders squad and reveal the results of our lucky draw.

Get more details on Maovember events here.

The Corner Melt hosted the pin launch party for Maovember 2014 last night and raised more than 3000 yuan for charity through drink sales and games alone. Dozens of people also bought Maovember pins for 50 yuan (500 mao) each and anonymous donors gave 4800 yuan to this year’s cause of funding cataract surgeries through Orbis.

Venues are raising funds this year through a mix of food and drink deals and games. At Corner Melt, manager Skylar oversaw the drinks deal — Knob Creek shots, picklebacks and PBR combos for rmb30, with all proceeds to charity — that raised 2340 yuan, while Jimi Sides of Corner Melt and Tommy Dobro of neighboring bar BBC ran the Nerf sports challenge that raised 400 yuan. Andy Horowitz of Andy’s Craft Sausages sold 320 yuan worth of Brass Monkeys, with all proceeds to Maovember.

That adds up to 3060 yuan just from drinks and games.

The event drew plenty of supporters from last year as well as newcomers, including a strong contingent from The Hash House Harriers, led by GM Andres Vargas. People who wear their pins to select venues during November are eligible for deals. That includes at The Corner Melt, where pin-wearers can get picklebacks for 30 yuan.

(Toward the end of the week, this 500 Mao Club page will start to include the names and in some cases photos of those supporting Maovember by buying pins. For details on upcoming activities, see the Maovember events page.)

Eight hundred yuan is a small price for sight. That is how much it costs Orbis to do cataract surgery on one person in rural China. Even more impressive is that  the surgery not only restores vision for a person — imagine a grandfather finally seeing his grandchild for the first time — but also lifts families out of poverty.

“Say there is an older man and he is blind. One, he can’t work. Second, he might need someone to stay home and take care of him. The result is the family ends up below the poverty line,” explains George Smith, Orbis’ managing director for North Asia.

“By correcting his sight, if he is a farmer, he can go back to his fields. His caretaker can go back to work, too, and they get above the poverty live. This can also mean the difference between their children going to school or not. So for adults, its about poverty alleviation, for children, it’s about education.”

Orbis, founded in 1982 and known for its “flying eye” hospital (see below), does more than show up, perform surgeries, and then fly off. It strives to create a sustainable surgery system.

“We build operations in rural areas and build relations with provincial-level hospitals,” says Smith.

He gives Heilongjiang as an example. Orbis would identify a major hospital and donate equipment, give input on the ophthalmology program and send people for training. That’s step one. Orbis then creates a network of smaller operations.

“Over five years, we’ll also work with twelve smaller hospitals outside of the bigger city and build a network of doctors who can do basic surgery. For more complicated cases, they can come to the bigger hospital,” he says.

For the maovember campaign, Orbis will have a senior program manager identify candidates for cataract surgery in rural China. The aim is for this year’s campaign to fund at least 25 operations.

“The surgery takes fifteen to twenty minutes and it changes lives forever,” says Smith. “This situation is so preventable, but there just aren’t enough people doing the surgeries, so we’re training them.”

Note: maovember will raise funds throughout November via events, pin sales and donations. Watch this site for updates on that campaign as well as on the individuals it will help. For more on Orbis, see this site. For queries re maovember, email nihao (at) maovember.com.

“Hand-crafted” is liberally and often unjustly used these days but perfectly applies to the process of making maovember pins.

Design is done in-house and goes through a rigorous series of revisions. The approved images are then printed and painstakingly cut out by hand. Finally the image is assembled in a intricate process that involves a pin base, a backing layer, a protective plastic cover and a fastener. Word is it takes years to master the craft although Julian Tavalin of Tavalin Bagels and Andy Horowitz of Andy’s Craft Sausages did so in a few hours.

They put those skills to use last night to create the first batch of maovember pins. Changes to this year’s pin include a bolder design, new fonts and a higher mustache motif that make it an attractive substitute in photos for those who lack upper lip hair (see models above).

Pins are now on sale in limited quantities and will be released in larger numbers over the weekend. In the next few days, a list of venues selling pints will be posted on this site and and they will also be available at The Corner Melt maovember party Sunday, which will include Knob Creek shots with PBR chasers for 30 yuan as well as Brass Monkeys, with all proceeds to charity (see details here).

Steven Schwankert, best-known in Beijing as founder of SinoScuba and executive editor of The Beijinger, inspired a new donor category when he decided to fund the cost of one cataract surgery — 800 yuan — through this year’s charity, Orbis.

Schwankert found himself on business in Lido yesterday and visited maovember event sponsor The Irish Volunteer to learn more about this year’s maovember campaign. Co-owners George Smith, Trish Smith and Zach Lewison told him about their plans to raise money with a corn toss tournament, moonshine picklebacks,  pin sales and more on November 22. George Smith, managing director of North Asia for Orbis, explained how the organization focuses on blindness prevention and treatment, which includes dramatically improving people’s lives by providing cataract surgeries that cost 800 yuan each.

Schwankert had a simple question: “What if I want to sponsor a surgery?” In other words, what if someone wants to take things up a notch from a 50-yuan pin to donating 800 yuan to give someone the gift of sight.

He thus became our first… well, we need a name for it. If buying a pin makes one a VIP donor, does funding an operation make one a Super VIP Donor? Or qualify one for a “golden mustache” pin? I think both.

If you want to sponsor an operation or have questions about maovember, email nihao (at) maovember.com.