Five Things I’m thinking about This Week:
Christmastime in Yanji:
From my vantage point (which,
I’ll admit, does not include many other places outside America) Yanji is a very
bizarre and interesting city. On one
hand it is a developing city in the middle of the Chinese tundra. The streets are a mess, there are clumsily
fashioned shacks on the road from downtown to our school, and it doesn’t take
long to walk out into the countryside and literally be in the middle of
nowhere.
Conversely, the downtown square
in Yanji seems like it is an area that is desperately trying to be modernized
and ‘Western’, but really doesn’t know how.
There is a mall where you can buy many products just like in America (I
bought an awesome North Face coat there); there are brand name stores like
Nike, Adidas, and KFC in the square; there is a billboard in the square of
LeBron James; there are restaurants that attempt to serve western food (key
word, attempt).
I believe that a lot of the
things we see in Yanji are Chinese people trying to imitate their perception of
America (or, Western cultures in general).
While this is easy for people in a city like Beijing where westerners
are prevalent, or wealthy Chinese people have actually been to America; most
people in Yanji have never been to America, and don’t really know anything
about Americans.
Christmastime makes for an even
more unique example.
While there are churches in Yanji
(at least one Catholic and one Protestant), I believe that the majority of the
people in the city know what they do about Christmas from what they see in
American pop culture. Some stores here
have signs that say “Merry Christmas” (actually written in English), some
restaurants and stores put up Christmas trees and lights, and I even saw a
Chinese Santa Claus trying to entice people on the street to eat at his
restaurant (I’m kicking myself for not getting a picture of this).
I guess when it comes down to it,
the biggest difference between Christmas in America and Christmas in China is
that the people in America at least have some basic understanding of WHY
Christmas actually exists. I would
imagine that most Americans that celebrate Christmas probably go to some sort
of Church (maybe I’m wrong), and that even if these people aren’t particularly
religious, they could still tell you the story behind the holiday.
My feeling is that in China, most
people only know Christmas as an American holiday.
This Candy is From America:
Three of my favorite people in
Yanji are our friends that own the small restaurant that we go to once a
week. When we went to dinner there this
week, I walked in wearing my Santa hat and gave them some Candy Canes and
Christmas chocolates. It was really cool
to see how surprised and happy they were to receive the candy from
America.
I sometimes think that the people
at the school, the students and other teachers, have grown to expect this sort
of thing from the American teachers over the years. It was pretty much expected that we got them
things. It is doing the unexpected
things that are a lot more fun. That is
why I loved giving candy to our friends at the restaurant, and it is probably
why they are my favorite people here in China: they don’t expect anything from
us just because we are Americans.
There are no Denny’s in China:
While I’ll probably write more
details about my Christmas Day experiences later, I did spend much of the week
showing Christmas movies to my students.
I showed my first year students Home
Alone, my second year students Elf,
and my third year students The Santa
Clause, noticing things in each film that I never noticed before.
First, I noticed that these
movies are filled with a lot of jokes that you would not understand if you did
not grow up in America. The Santa Clause and Elf especially have a lot of these types
of jokes. Even something as simple as
Tim Allen taking his son to Denny’s for dinner on Christmas Eve is a joke that
the people here could not understand even if they are completely fluent in
English. Insofar as I can tell, there
are no Denny’s in China.
These types of jokes are ALL OVER
these movies. There were so many times
last week when I was sitting in the back of the dark classroom laughing out
loud as all of the students turned around to look at me. Things that I found hilarious, like Tim
Allen’s dialogue, they just didn’t get.
Imagine watching The Santa Clause
if you had never seen Home Improvement. Is the long-term ability for this film to be
a Christmas classic entirely dependent on the memory Americans have of the
sitcom (something that is fleeting)?
Second, I realized how dependent
Christmas movies are on the circumstances surrounding when you watch them and
who you watch them with. Almost every
Christmas movie is about people being reunited with friends and family. At the end of Home Alone, Kevin is reunited with his family; at the end of Elf, Buddy is finally united with his
family; at the end of The Santa Clause,
Allen’s family (including Neal) finally learns how to live with each
other. If you are watching these scenes
with family and friends, they are incredibly happy; but if you are watching
them in a classroom full of Chinese kids, they are incredibly sad.
Luckily, I did not cry when
Kevin’s Mom makes it home on Christmas Day or when Mr. Norwall said, “By Buddy,
hope you find your Dad.” I almost did
though, so who do I have to thank for that?
Urban Legend:
If somebody had told me a year
ago that a coach of a major college football program would resign for health
reasons, Urban Meyer would probably be the last person that I would think about. I’d love to say that he’ll be back, but I
don’t think he will be.
I wonder what position he will
take with ESPN.
It’s Sunday, Pancakes Day:
A couple weeks ago, the head
English teacher was asking me if I have any talents that I could share at our
Christmas Party (more on this later, I hope).
I tried to explain to her that all of my talents were in things that
really couldn’t be appreciated in China, things such as my English writing
ability; or my knowledge of movies, television, American politics, and American
sports. The only talent I (might) have
that can be appreciated here is my ability to drink more alcohol than any 133
pound person should be able to drink.*
*Ironically, I suppose, we found out this week that our Chinese
teachers thought that weight has no impact on how much a person can drink. They thought that I should be able to drink just
as much as Gavin, just because (even though he has at least 40 pounds on
me).
I realized, however, that there
was one other talent I have that people here can appreciate: I can make
pancakes.
I guess I was first taught how to
make pancakes by my parents all those times over the years. I probably got decent at making pancakes on
Boy Scout camping trips (although the conditions were not ideal). I became good at making pancakes over the
past year standing next to my friend Brad (as he made the bacon, and I the
pancakes) most Sundays. So, this
morning, Gavin and I made breakfast for the priests and brothers that live at
the school, and I made pancakes (with mix sent to us from America).
My pancakes were great, everybody
loved them, but now we are out of mix.
This isn’t a problem, however, because I am pretty sure that I now like
making pancakes more than I actually like eating them. This is ironic because I have probably seen
my Mom make pancakes hundreds of times more than I have seen her eat them, and
I have probably seen my Dad make pancakes infinitely more times than I have
seen him eat them.
Rising up My iTunes Play Count
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: Bing Crosby—The last of my
often-played Christmas songs, was one of three (along with Father Christmas and All I
Want For Christmas Is You) Christmas songs to enter my Top 25 most played
songs on iTunes this holiday season.
While I’ll probably play the Christmas songs a little bit more until New
Year’s Eve (when I leave for my travels), Christmas season is now winding down,
and these songs won’t be played much more until next year.
I
know I’m not in America because . . .
. . . as we plan our two month
vacation, we are not only considering taking trains, but are planning on it.
Hypothetical
Question of the Week:
Suppose a new miracle pill is
discovered. If you take this pill, you
will never be sick again in your life.
You will not get cancer; you will never get the Flu; you will be immune
to the common cold, and you will never have a fever. However, if you take this pill you will never
smile or laugh again in your life. You
will ostensibly be incapable of having fun.
Would you take this pill?
Meal
of the Week:
This week Gavin and my Chinese
teachers invited us to dinner with another teacher. We went to a restaurant (similar to ones I
have described before on this blog) where you are served raw meet on skewers
and you heat it over coals in the center of the table. I love these types of restaurants because all
you really eat is meat and drink beer.
The interesting thing about this
meal was the group of five people. There
was me, an English speaker who understands some Chinese (as well as Spanish). Then there was Gavin, who speaks English and
Chinese (as well as Italian, and some Spanish).
My Chinese teacher speaks Chinese and Korean. Gavin’s Chinese teacher speaks Chinese and
some English, and the fifth teacher (Brother Savio) speaks Korean, knows
Chinese (although Gavin says it is very difficult to understand), and thinks he
speaks English (but we can never really understand him).
While this would NEVER happen in
America, here in Yanji it seems to happen all the time. We were at a meal where nobody could fully
understand what each of the other people at the table were trying to say. I’ve been at meals before where there have been
four or five languages flying around the table.
These meals can get really crazy and confusing, and it’s just something
else we have to deal with by living here.
Quotation of the Week:
“You look so cute.” –Everybody to
me, when they saw my Santa hat this week
Picture of the Week:
This was my Christmas dinner in
2009. I don’t really know what most of
it was, so don’t ask:
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