My Weekly Run-Down will be coming in a day or two. For now, here is the story of my Christmas.
I didn’t bolt out of bed with a
smile on my face; I didn’t run up the stairs to the family room of my parent’s
house in anticipation of the gifts that would be under the tree. I hadn’t been up till 3 AM the previous
morning helping my Dad take gifts out of the attic, and I hadn’t again
discovered some liquor that I didn’t particularly enjoy as much as I should.
I wouldn’t be seeing my Aunts and
Uncles today, and I wouldn’t be trying to bond with my young cousins over Miley
Cyrus and Taylor Swift. I wouldn’t be
eating pancakes this morning, just like I hadn’t eaten fried fish and noodles
the previous night (that being the traditional Polish meal my family has every
year).
I had presents, but they wouldn’t
be opened. I had cookies that had turned
into crumbs. I had my Christmas movies
which had been mailed to me, and I would be wearing my Santa hat and my Christmas
pajama pants.
I knew it was Christmastime, but
this Christmas was something entirely different.
I rolled out of bed, showered,
and ate some Chinese brand Cocoa Puffs as if it were any other day. I walked outside in the sub-freezing temperature
and made my way to the teacher bus that takes us to school. When we arrived at the school I took off the
GBN swim team warm up pants that I had worn outside, to reveal the Christmas
pajama pants I had received the previous Christmas from my roommate. I took off my coat and hat and put on my
Santa hat for everybody to see. If they
didn’t know it was Christmas before, they certainly would know about it after
today.
***
I had worn my Santa hat to school
every day of Christmas week. When I
first wore it on Monday, many of the students laughed. I noticed some of the students saying things
about me in Chinese, and some of the teachers thought it was funny. One teacher, Lucy, even asked me if everybody
in my family wears special hats for Christmas.
The thing about being in Yanji is that every little thing that I do can
be perceived as having some greater meaning for all of American culture—but it
doesn’t.
By the time Friday (Christmas
Day) came around, everybody had grown accustomed to the fact that I was wearing
a Santa hat. Nobody really mentioned it
in the later parts of the week, and I knew that I would need to escalate my
clothing ridiculousness in order to increase my spread of Christmas cheer on
Friday. So on Friday I wore my Santa
hat, a red polo shirt, and my Christmas pajamas.
Again there were eyes constantly
turned towards me and questions running rampant. The teacher, Lucy, again asked me a question:
“Does everybody in America wear costumes for Christmas?”
We gave the other English teachers
presents for Christmas. Candy Canes and
Chocolates all shipped directly from America brought about more questions
related to the candy canes we were giving them, and even more questions about
why these candies were featured on my pants.
I was doing my best to spread the Christmas cheer at least across my
school in this far-flung corner of the world.
The teacher, Lucy, noticed that I
had a huge smile on my face the entire day.
I was brimming with excitement because it was Christmas Day. I started to tell her and several other
teachers about all of the traditions my family and friends have for
Christmas. I told them about the Polish
dinner on Christmas Eve (which also prompted a brief explanation of America being
a country of immigrants). I told them about mistletoe and how last year I
walked around Christmas parties with some of it on a large stick. I told them about Egg Nog and how excited I
was for the following Christmas when my family would complete the transition
from ‘a family of Children and a present-oriented Christmas’ to ‘a family of
young adults and an alcohol-centered Christmas’.
I was brimming.
***
After we showed our students the
Christmas movies (which you’ve already read about,) in our classes,
and the students all went home for the weekend; it was time for the teacher’s
party. The last Friday of the year, the
teachers have a ‘New Year’s Party’ at the school. Including food, drinks, games, singing,
dancing, prizes, and surprises, this party had all the makings of any company’s
Christmas party in America.
The party started just like any
of the school events I have been to with the teachers in China. We sat at tables and drank water while
everybody waited until the food came out.
Once the food was brought out (this time it was buffet-style), there was
a flurry of eating and drinking the likes of which I have never seen
before.
People chowed down the food and
did toasts at all the tables for about twenty minutes and everything seemed
pretty normal (for a larger dinner in Yanji).
But then, it all ended. The
lights darkened and smaller lights were turned on to a dance-floor like area in
the middle of the room. It was like that
moment of a wedding reception or other banquet when the focus turns from
drinking and eating to dancing. When the
proceedings began, however, it was decidedly different. What followed will absolutely, positively go
down as the most bizarre Christmas I will ever have in my life.
Two teachers took the floor
dressed in a tuxedo and an evening gown, holding cards that looked like the
note cards one would hold if they were hosting a game show. These would be our host and hostess for the
party (something that most parties in China evidently have), and they would
lead us through the events that would transpire.
When the lights turned down, the
drinking ended, and everybody turned their full attention to what was happening
at the center of the floor. Gavin and
another teacher sang a song in Chinese.
A couple teachers’ children played songs on the flute and piano, and
several other groups of teachers sang prepared songs (complete with dance moves
and everything).
Then, it was time for the
prepared dance numbers that all of the teachers were a part of.
***
When I graduated from college, I
didn’t really know which courses I had taken that would prove to be most
valuable in the long term. Maybe, if I
became involved with politics, my political science courses would give me a lot
of basic knowledge that would be important.
Maybe, if I started working in hard journalism, my economics courses
would be important. I thought it was
possible that my film history classes would be influential or that my fiction
writing class would help me along the way.
Never, however, did I think that
my experience in my tap dancing class would be important in the year after
graduation.
About three weeks before the
Christmas party, all of the teachers were divided into groups that would
perform dance numbers at the Christmas party.
My group was essentially recreating what appeared to be a dance number
they had found on some Chinese website.
It seemed like a pop song, nothing too difficult, and nothing too
weird. We just spent a lot of time memorizing
all of the moves—a LOT of time.
During my tap classes, a lot of
the people were just goofing around.
Sure, most of the people actually learned the tap moves (mainly because
of Professor McKenna) but nobody was taking it too seriously
and everybody’s main objective was to do have a lot of fun.
When we were preparing our dance
moves in China, this was decidedly NOT the case. Rehearsals for these performances were
incredibly serious and time consuming.
Most of the groups practiced after school every day for three
weeks. During practices our group would
get together in a classroom, put the video on a computer screen in the front,
and just watch and repeat.
Some people would count off
numbers—yi, er, san, si, wo, liu, chi, ba—just like I had seen done many times
in dancing movies like Bring It On. We practiced a roughly four minute dance
number over, and over, and over again until we knew it backwards and forwards. Long after I had a basic understanding of all
the moves, we continued to practice it.
If I tried to screw around during the rehearsals, Chinese people would
get upset with me.
Evidently
this was really important, and we had to take it really seriously.
***
So there
I was, on Christmas Day, sitting in a dark room sneakily drinking some beer
that my Chinese teacher had stashed away for Gavin and I, watching each group
perform their dance number. Some of the
groups took it more seriously than others, but all of them took it more
seriously than I thought they should have been taking it. One group did a dance that had some sort of
Middle Eastern flair to it. Another
group (Gavin’s group) did a dance that had far too many sexually charged dance
moves considering the group had a priest in it, and a third group did a proper
ballroom dance-type performance.
When it
came time for my group’s dance, some of the men in the group became very
concerned that I was not dressed in a white shirt. Apparently this is one of the things that
everybody was told, but nobody translated for me. While they contemplated having me borrow a
shirt from a teacher in another group (putting it on off of his back, I
suppose), they ultimately decided that I looked amusing enough in my Christmas
‘costume’ to just perform the dance as I was.
We each
adorned white gloves (which really brought me back to my marching band days)
and goofy ties that zipped themselves up, and prepared to take the stage. [I would go on to describe the dance, but you
can watch most of it HERE , I’m the one in the Santa hat].
After
each group performed their dance, things started to get even crazier.
With the
performances over, the party devolved into something that resembled a game
show. With the lights still dimmed,
people were brought onto the stage by the hosts in order to participate in a
variety of games. There were trivia games;
there was charades, and a variety of other games that I simply did not
understand because everything was happening in languages (Korean and Chinese)
which I did not understand.
Just
when I thought I would fall asleep sitting right there in my chair, everybody
got up out of their chairs and sat on the floor in the middle of the dance
floor. After the principal came out
dressed as Santa and gave some presents to all of the children that were
present, things got really weird as everybody started to pound the back of the
person sitting in front of them.
Before I
could figure out what was going on, everybody abruptly rotated themselves and
started to pound the back of the person that had previously been sitting behind
them. After doing this for a while,
everybody again turned (this time so that they were facing the person to their
side) and began to play some sort of slapping game. Sitting next to my Chinese teacher, we both
put our hands out and started to slap each other’s hands. This went on for a little while longer until
the host said something, everybody stood up, and it all turned into chaos.
When
everybody stood up, people started running around and forming groups. One group grabbed me in, and we all hunched
down to the floor. I really had no idea
what was going on when the whole process started over again and people started
running around the dance floor while everybody was grabbing at each other and
pushing each other away. I was led by a
little Chinese girl and her mother from one group to the next while people
grabbed at me and pushed each other around.
I
finally figured out that the object of this game was to create groups of people
that were equal in number to what the host yelled out. As soon as I figured this out, the game
promptly ended and everybody returned to their seats. The trivia games continued with people
yelling out answers faster than the questions could be translated into English for
me. Even questions that I thought I
could answer seemed to have something lost in translation because all the
answers seemed to be counter to what I thought (like one color in chess having
larger pieces).
The
night continued, and there was finally a game I thought I could understand and
participate in. It was a cross between
charades and telephone where four people lined up and the first was given a
word. That person acted out the word for
the next person who then acted it out for the next person who did the same for
the final person. I figured that as long
as I was one of the people in the middle of the line, it wouldn’t matter that I
didn’t understand Chinese as I would still be able to understand the hand
signals.
I didn’t
understand any of the signals that occurred in front of me, but my team somehow
managed to get one of them correct just by me trying to copy what the person in
front of me did.
***
As the
night was winding down, some of the administration started to distribute prizes
to everybody who was there. I won what
appeared to be a jar of jam, and Gavin and I also got prizes such as tooth
paste, laundry detergent, shampoo, hand lotion, and body wash. As the presentations came to their conclusion
we all packed up our presents (in a way that is reminiscent of how I used to
pack up my presents to leave my Grandparents house on Christmas Eve) and
prepared to board the Teacher’s bus.
I walked
outside and saw that it was snowing, and that we had now had a White Christmas
in Yanji (something that the rest of the people here failed to care about). I sat down on the bus and almost fell asleep
as we made our way back to the central part of the city from our school. We climbed up the stairs into our apartment,
I sent out an e-mail wishing my friends a Merry Christmas, and then I went to
sleep; having survived what will probably be remembered as my most strange and difficult
day in China.
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