Sanksgiwing

As I laid naked, spread eagle among my co-workers as a Chinese man rubbed my body with hot oil, I decided my attitude of 'I'll try almost anything once' may or may not have negative as well as positive ramifications. Before, I get into my traditional Thanksgiving, I should start at the beginning.

The main point of my teaching in the school system is to provide the students an opportunity to hear, question, and learn from a native English speaker. As such, most of my teaching centers around pronunciation rather than content. The regular teachers provide grammar and vocabulary lessons and I'm the barely trained talking English machine, which is daunting. However, my students are seemingly unable to pronounce two sounds 'th' and 'v'. Granted, I understand that 'th' is a rarely occurring sound in world languages but after three months of me correcting them with 'th' and 's' sounds, you'd think some progress would have been made. However, I digress, I should discuss my Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has never been my favorite of the big holidays because it always seemed like rehearsal Christmas just on a cheaper scale. As such, my home sickness wasn't too bad for most of the holiday, until I had to tell all of my classes what we do on Thanksgiving. At the beginning of class, I asked my students what Americans do on Thanksgiving and in almost every class they proclaimed that we eat chicken, fruit and vegetables. OK, here's the problem. Their texts are written by British trained Chinese people. However, Chinese students want to learn about America, so the text book publishers accommodate by trying to teach about America. The problem naturally arises that the authors have never been to America and are teaching the children British English. Most of my classes are involved with correcting information or explaining unnecessarily difficult grammar into easier to understand American English. (e.g. asking 'Do you have...?' rather than 'Have you got any...?' to which the answer is 'Yes, I've got.' or 'No, I haven't.') Anwho, on Thursday my classes went well enough, even though it was at my least favorite school. Since I had a talk with the teachers though, things have been getting better at that school, which is a relief. Now, JieFang is almost my favorite school incidentally.

For lunch on Thursday, I always get a special meal made my the kitchen staff because the slop they serve is uneatable and one day I finally snapped and refused to eat breaded fish heads and cabbage soup. The principal, who has given herself the moniker of my 'Chinese mother', asked me to make a list of all the foods I like and all those I do not for the kitchen staff. I now usually have their interpretation of Western food, which is usually just stewed tomatoes mixed with something else. It sucks, but I can usually choke it down. Anywho, on Thursday I discovered that the principal herself is making my lunches now. Furthermore, that day she was going to show me how to make sushi. So, on Thanksgiving I learned how to make sushi from my Chinese mother, which was kind of fun. I didn't fish in my sushi, only vegetables wrapped in rice and seaweed which I think is technically something else but I don't care.

As we were making sushi, I talked with her in our mutual Chenglish and I told her about our Thanksgiving foods. When I got back to the English office, I learned she was throwing us a little Thanksgiving dinner party after my lessons that day. When I arrived in the English office, they other teachers and the principal were scurrying covering a few desks pushed together with a table cloth and laying out food. My Chinese mother looked on the internet to see what foods we ate and tried her best to accommodate. The spread included chicken breast (no turkey in China, though the Chinese words for turkey actually translates to field chicken), corn, taro rolls, bread and jam, grapes, apples (from America) and a fruit the name of which I do not know. It was actually kind of touching how much trouble they went to in order to make me feel like I was having a real Thanksgiving. I ate everything like a person who hadn't eaten in years and it was pretty good. They even sent all the left overs home with me, thus it really was like Thanksgiving.

The next day, I was back at JieFang for my afternoon classes and was invited to their monthly school sponsored outing. The last two times, I had Chinese classes or some other excuse, but since they went to so much trouble for me the day before, I figured I should suck it up and go with them to the bath house. I have been to a different private health spa here in China, this was really something different indeed.

After all the male teachers and I stripped down and got our shower, we went into the giant hot tub to stew. It was nice, but being in the middle of a giant room full of naked Chinese men while being naked myself left something to be desired. After a bit, we went into the two saunas. The one was a lesser temp but horribly humid while the other was a dry wooden one at a higher temp. I have to saw, awkward as it is, I had a good time in the saunas. Then came another shower and the exfoliating scrub....

I expected some sort of chemical wash or cleanser as an exfoliate. In China, the exfoliate they use is a big Chinese man named Wang with a rough towel wrapped around his hand. I laid naked on this table as did the other male teachers on their respective tables and began to be rubbed by Wang and his cheese grater towel. To say it was refreshing would be a misnomer, but it certainly was invigorating. After Wang gives you a giant Indian rug burn on your WHOLE body, we gets out the hot oil. As if it's not awkward enough hanging out naked with your co workers, nothing really bonds males together quite like laying next to each other with your legs over a Chinese guys shoulders while he rubs hot oil on your taint. In fact, besides Natalie I don't know any of my friends who have had Asian men rubbing oil on any part of their bodies.

After my oil rub down, we had another shower and then got some weird paper clothes on and went upstairs to meet up with our female co workers and my Chinese mother of course. We all had some tea and a chat before I had to leave for a company dinner. I told my co workers the name of the restaurant I was going to, who in turn told an attendant at the bath house and he got me cab and told the driver where to take me. I ate another Thanksgiving dinner, this one at a German brew house which was a (dare I say... buffet). Needless to say I didn't eat much, but certainly drank a few pints.

So, that was my Chinese Thanksgiving. Learning how to make sushi, eating chicken pretending to be turkey, having my body assaulted by an over zealous Chinese man and then pints of dark beer at a German brew house. In short, not a far cry from the first Thanksgiving encountered by our founders.

P.S. Liz, I just got the card today. It made me laugh my ass off! Yet again, the people in my office failed to grasp the humour. Chumps.