22 November, 2006

Thanksgiving festivities...in China

Tomorrow will mark my second holiday in China (Halloween was the first). I've noticed that many of the Chinese think that Thanksgiving is on Saturday, still haven't gotten to the bottom of that one, but I think it's because a lot of people will have "Thanksgiving parties" on Saturday ... although, they don't really understand how Thanksgiving came to be. I failed at giving the team a taste of Thanksgiving...I tried to order lunch delivery from Steak & Eggs too late (Monday). Oh well, I'll give them a taste of American Christmas.

This will be the first Thanksgiving ever, that I've spent away from my parents (awwe). For the past 5 years that I was in Raleigh, NC for Thanksgiving...I've gone to Buffalo, went to NYC once or my aunt & uncle have Thanksgiving at their house & my parents come. This will also be the first Thanksgiving that I won't be out partying the night before (Wednesday night booze fest is a tradition in Buffalo, likely many other cities too). Unfortunately, I can't really take off for the "US holidays" ... so, will be in the office bright & early tomorrow.

However, I will be having Thanksgiving dinner at an "American" restaurant: Steak & Eggs (It's owned by a guy from Canada, close enough). I'm meeting some other American guys there around 5pm tomorrow evening. We're all bring dates (Chinese girls that don't speak English), so they can experience their first Thanksgiving feast.

I don't think there will be much going on here for Thanksgiving, but I'm interested to see how the day goes. I'm sure I'll see a few strange things (maybe some turkeys being slaughtered on a side street in Chaoyang?).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

October 9 was Thanksgiving for Canada - just so you can let your host know you know :-)

I will savor a turkey leg in your honor tomorrow.

Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday in America. In some ways it is an apetizer to Christmas giving the families a little practice at getting together.

Enjoy. We will think of you.

Krista said...

One thing that's wild here Mike is that if you go to the stores, you'd think Thanksgiving was already over! Christmas displays went up at Target,etc on Halloween night practically.

I'm going with my sister and nephew to a friend's house for dinner. Heading home-home @ Christmas. Do you have one of the Lenovo web cams? Maybe that plus SKype could put you in touch with the family. David has that set up, so he can talk you through it I'm sure. --K

manninchina said...

Jim...I was actually in S&E on Canadian Thanksgiving :-). Hope you enjoyed your holiday.

Krista... hope your Thanksgiving was good as well! I've got a couple Lenovo web cams on order for my team to use to stay connected with the teams they are working with in AP. We did our first video conf. (skype) with the AU team, it was great!