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Published: December 1st 2008
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All the Yummy Food
We managed to make: two chickens, mashed potatoes, carrots, broccoli, rolls, sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie. Our guests also contributed soup and fruit salad. I begin every class for my junior students by putting a sentence on the board that has mistakes, both grammatical and spelling, within it. The students enjoy the routine of making the sentence “100%” and I am enjoying watching their progress with English grammar. I always write the sentence based on that week’s lesson and so last week my sentence for the kids looked like this:
Everyday, i is thankful four my family and freinds.
Thanksgiving is not a well-known holiday in China, and while some of my students were familiar with it, most of my students did not know what it was, let alone that it was last week. However, I saw the occasion as a useful way to encourage my students to be thankful and to prepare them for learning about Christmas (it also helped that I needed an easy filler lesson because last week was the school’s “Olympics” and I did not see six of my classes).
Avoiding the whole messy history of the subject, I had a good time teaching my students about turkey, American football, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. What I enjoyed the most, however, was getting them to all write
Cooking Sweet Potato Casserole
Notice I am smiling. Note that I am holding a plastic cup of wine. down what they were thankful for and then making a big class list on the board. While we always started with people (my personal favorite being, “I am thankful for Ms. Jessica”), I always encouraged them to think outside the box, and we ended up with lists as diverse as sun and water to televisions and computer games.
Little did I know how important their enthusiasm would be in helping me keep my sanity come Thursday night.
Every Thursday night here in China, Brian and I, in the tradition of the foreign teachers that previously taught at our school, host a party. We do not mind doing this; as most of you know, we love to entertain. My only pet peeve is that the Chinese are pretty much incapable of understanding “R.S.V.P.” But, as you all know, it is very difficult to know how much food to prepare and what kind of crowd to be ready for if no one will tell you if they are coming or not until the very last minute.
Therefore, for Thanksgiving, I requested that it be mostly Westerners, as the Chinese teachers had been very fickle about coming the past few
Not Enough Chairs, But Certainly Enough Love!
We tried our hardest to keep it classy, but it was difficult. And thanks for the Halloween paper plates and napkins mom! They sure came in handy! weeks, and we wanted to have all of the other couples in the program over for dinner. A grand total of twelve people. They all sent an R.S.V.P., we bought what supplies we could, and it seemed as if we were all set.
Of course, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for any number of people in a country where they do not eat turkey, mashed potatoes, or pumpkin pie, and where we only had a hotplate and a toaster oven to cook with was sure to be an adventure. Yet by 7:20pm, ten minutes before dinner was scheduled to begin, everything was almost ready and things were going swimmingly.
At about 7pm, Brian had run out with two of our friends to go get some wine from the store downstairs and the rest of us expected them back at any minute. Yet when I heard a knock at the door it was not Brian, Kitty, and Zach, but rather one of the Chinese teachers and her son, and they were not the end of it. Five minutes later the party had doubled in size.
I was beginning to get angry that
I am thankful for...
I made the adults do what the kids did all week. Brian was not back yet. The chickens appeared to be done, but I was so busy fielding questions of “What is that dish?” and “Why do you eat that?” from the Chinese (they are absolutely perplexed by cranberry sauce, but they like it), that I couldn’t get away to check on them. After getting one of the other guys to help me carve, Brian finally got back, assessed the situation, and came over and said, “It’s Thanksgiving, don’t get angry.”
I knew he was right, but it was becoming more difficult by the moment to keep my cool. Yet, as I was trying to make the food stretch as far as I could (we cut the pumpkin pie into sixteen pieces and still some of us had to share) I heard one of the Chinese teachers sitting in a circle telling another teacher, “Thank you for being my friend.” Then they all began thanking each other for things. I know that is not exactly what Thanksgiving stands for, but the effect was quiet touching and I finally relaxed (I had also downed enough bad Chinese wine at this point to make the situation seem much more rosy).
At the end of the night, after all of our Western friends left at about 2am, Brian and I climbed into bed, absolutely exhausted, but quite content. For while Thanksgiving was complicated and stressful, and at times a bit absurd, we had successfully hosted our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. It can only get easier from here!
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Steve
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Having Too Many Friends
Having too many friends is never a bad thing. Too many family members...now that's another thing altogether!! (kidding, of course) Despite the challenges, you enjoyed it. It will definitely be one you remember. And Christmas this year should be interesting as well. Do they have many Christian Chinese in the area you're in?