Thanksgiving in Beijing

I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that I could have a Thanksgiving holiday as amazing as the one I just had in a country other than the United States.

November in America is a wonderful time of year. Christmas is almost in the air, and everyone is just waiting for the extended break they know will come in December. But the fourth Thursday each November has its own magic. Here in China, we don’t see anything of the American holidays. There weren’t any pumpkins out in October, and there haven’t been any turkeys decorating store fronts here. However, somehow the students of CET found a way to bring holiday cheer into the Land of the Rising Dragon.

It all started on Thursday, we all got up and Jamie and I decided to go for a swim. We swam for about an hour and after being really tired went to English club. English club is a club for Chinese students to meet and interact with English speaking foreigners. While there Jamie got a call that there were some students playing football, so we decided to introduce the Chinese to some good old Thanksgiving Football.

After the game, we went inside to help the women cook. It was kind of funny actually, because all of the guys were playing football, and all of the girls were cooking dinner. Haha. Funny. Anywho, we went inside and had the womenfolk put us to work peeling potatoes and buying groceries they forgot. After doing manual labor for a while, they told me they required liquor, so I went and bought some.

By the way, cheap American wine has nothing on cheap Chinese wine. I can get 1.5 liters here for less than 3 dollars. And get drunk off of only 1 liter!

Anywho, needless to say, I was pretty well drunk long before dinner started. When we finally sat down at the dinner table, and all the food was out, one of the Chinese teachers said “他喝醉了” (He’s Drunk) to which I replied “不是啊！！！还没有啊！！” (NO I’M NOT!!! NOT YET!!!) I’m not entirely proud of the situation, although it was pretty damn funny.

I should make it clear that the entire dinner, enough for more than 40 people was entirely organized by CET students. Sophie Xiong, who’s uncle actually owns the restaurant on the first floor, allowed us to use his kitchen to cook in. All the food was bought by CET students (although CET did give us some money to buy it) and it was all cooked by CET students. On top of that, there were 18 pies made for the situation, all of which were entirely handmade by Rachel. She is a goddess in my book.

So we had quite the feast on Thanksgiving: turkey, chicken, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, au gratin potatoes, broccoli and garlic, mac & cheese, other assorted pastas, wine, brandy, pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and many other dishes that I can’t even remember. The night was amazing, the food was amazing, the people are amazing, and I’m just so damn thankful that I had the experience.

I’m thankful for the friends I’ve made, the level of awesomeness they possess, and the experience of a lifetime that I’ve had here in Beijing. I get a little teary now thinking about it, but I’ve only got about 2 weeks left with these fine folks who I probably won’t ever see again. So I hope they can know how thankful I am for knowing them, and how thankful I am that they’ve colored my experience here with hues of joy, confusion, excitement, frustration, drunken rage, uncontrollable hilarity, and everything in-between. I can’t express what I’ve gained from my stay here, but with only two weeks left to know these people, I feel like I can only be sure of one thing: my time here with them has not been nearly enough.