Every student in my spoken Chinese class has to create a five minute presentation on a topic of their choice. The teacher thought it would be amusing to assign me (one of two Americans in the class) the topic of US Thanksgiving to present on the holiday itself. For those of us who have always grown up gorging ourselves on the fourth Thursday in November, it’s harder than it may initially sound to summarize the complexities of this holiday in five minutes. Add to the fact that I currently only have a vocabulary of (at best) a few hundred words, and you can see why this challenge was more daunting than I anticipated! I’ll translate in English the Powerpoint slides I made:
- Every year, on the fourth Thursday of November, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving.*
- We travel to see family.
- We eat a very big meal. This meal has special dishes: pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, stuffing,** and turkey (“fire chicken”).
- After eating, we rest and watch TV.
- We watch American football.
- The next day, we buy things. This day is called “black Friday.”
- When it is Thanksgiving, we are very happy!***
* yes, the Chinese have translated the word “Thanksgiving.”
** the same character for the material in a mattress.
*** because every level one language slide show should end on a happy note :)
I am curious to know what my international motley of classmates thought of this presentation. I must admit that the holiday sounds a bit odd when reduced to this description! I initially attempted to explain pilgrims (along with religious persecution in Europe), hardship in a new land, the generosity of Indians, betrayal, slaughter, Manifest Destiny, gratitude, and cherished time with family, but I’m afraid I cannot capture such complex ideas yet in Chinese. So for now, all I can communicate is the basics of our current practices: travel, eat, watch, and shop.
I actually did three out of four of these things on Thanksgiving itself: after our morning classes, a British classmate/friend and I went to Wal-Mart to “buy things.” There was actually a pretty big aisle of Christmas decorations. The Chinese believe the color red is auspicious, and in general they find many Christmas decorations suitable to their tastes (which means some decorations stay up all year). In addition to the year-round door adornments of Santa, I’m also seeing a fair share of wreathes, bells, and red stockings emerge around shopping centers in Hangzhou!
We bought a few groceries from Wal-Mart, then headed back to campus. Our dinner reservations for the Thanksgiving meal weren’t until 9pm, so we passed the time by watching a movie. Shop: check. Watch: check. Finally, it was time to EAT!
A Western (i.e. American/European) restaurant near us that has an American chef hosted a lovely Thanksgiving meal. In addition to Brian and me, we had two American friends, my British friend, and our Chinese teacher/her friend join us for the meal. With a picture of Elvis (the “cat king” in Chinese) watching over us, we could introduce our American “special dishes” to our British and Chinese companions.
Overall, it was a decent Thanksgiving. I of course miss home and the yearly rituals of this holiday, but I’m glad I could still find a little taste of those childhood memories even here in a faraway land! Stay tuned to see what Christmas in China looks like (hint: it involves even more plastered Santa faces, and a couple creepy renditions of “jingle bells”).