Thanksgiving in China

Well, this was the first Thanksgiving that I have ever celebrated outside of the United States…so obviously it was the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever celebrated outside the United States!

We had all the normal foods except for turkey and cranberry sauce. We had chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, a corn dish, sweet potato dish, green been dish, pumpkin pie, wine, etc. It was fantastic. Meghan did a lot of the cooking. Rosie brought over her convection oven along with some cooking supplies and cooking staples, then also baked the pumpkin pie. I was amazed that Rosie had never made a home-made pie before and her pie turned out looking, smelling and tasting amazing. Everyone kind of pitched in on something and we had a great time. When we cooked the dumplings with my students a couple of weeks ago, we learned that cooking and eating in my apartment doesn’t work because it’s too small. So, we cooked in Meghan’s apartment, then ate in mine. It worked out really well, because I have more space in my apartment for people to sit in than Meghan does. Everyone came over around 7:30 and then left close to midnight. It was a great time!

Friday we kind of took it easy. There was no English Corner this week on campus, because of another activity that was going on. Friday, during the day, there was an AIDS show on campus. Students organized a show, like the other art festival activities that had happened the previous months on campus, to help raise money and awareness for AIDS. The students who performed in the show did a great job. I, however, had to leave the show early to teach a class. Friday night Meghan and I went to donkey restaurant for dinner then we watched Wall-E. I, unfortunately, was so tired, I think I slept through half the movie. So, after the movie it was time for bed.

Saturday was another really fun, random night. At first we planned on going to dinner as a group then heading to OK Bar to play some free pool and hang out. Ok Bar is our favorite place to hang out because the staff knows us and we normally always sit at the same table. There is a western toilet, toilet paper and free pool table, so that makes the place awesome. However, not everyone was able to make it to dinner. So, Megan, Chris and I went to donkey restaurant (yea, one of our favorite restaurants) and got some food. We were then on our way to the OK Bar to meet up with everyone, when Meghan pointed out a Chinese arcade on the way to the bar. I was amazed and wanted to go in. They had all these way cool looking Chinese games, including DDR, of course…there were a bunch of people who seemed to be between the ages of 16-25 in there hanging out and playing games (and staring at the three Americans walking by) when we were in there. I think I found a fun new place to go with students, as I am kind of amazed by some of the games that are in there. I didn’t have my camera on me, but next time we go back I will have it and take some pictures. Then, after leaving the arcade, we got a call from Matt. He was at the KTV across from my apartment with some of his Chinese friends and they wanted us to join them. This KTV is the one that wouldn’t let us in twice, because apparently there is a membership fee…I don’t know. But it also is a very expensive KTV. So, it was nice being able to see this one…however I think I like our regular one more! Matt’s Chinese friends were great. The guys that were there did not know much English, but they were very sociable and spoke to us with their limited English and we attempted to use our limited Chinese. There were three girls there two. One’s name is Cecelia, and she has AWESOME English, then one of the other girls English was pretty good. It was a good time, but we left the KTV around 10:30.

After the KTV we decided to go to OK Bar because it was too early to go home. So we went for a little bit. When we walked in, we all immediately noticed there was a foreigner in the bar. It is always fun meeting a new foreigner. He is from Germany and is working for the German based company in our city, however last night was his last night in the city. He had a lot of Chinese friends with him too (all of which worked at the same company). His Chinese friends were from Shanghai and spoke very good English. I also met a Chinese guy, his English name is Chris, who lives in Chengde part of the year and also lives in Auckland, New Zealand for the other part, due to his work. We had an awesome talk about New Zealand, as I studies abroad there. It was a great time. Always fun meeting random new people at the Ok Bar.. The best part about this trip to the OK Bar was this married man who was very flirtatious with Megan and Meghan while his wife was at the bar. He was dancing with him, calling them beautiful, etc. He was a very entertaining, nice guy…we were just shocked that his wife was cool with him dancing with two random American girls at the bar. Oh well, all in good fun, I guess.

Today is lesson plan day! Yay for leaving lesson plans for each week to Sunday. This seems to be the Sunday afternoon ritual now, creating lesson plans.

I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving…photos from my Thanksgiving will be posted soon.