A Very Merry Tacky Chinese Christmas!

For some reason, the Chinese have really embraced the commercial Christmas. There are decorations everywhere! I think it started in the western malls then spread everywhere! Here are some shots.

We saw this in a mall... What does it mean?

This is a more local view... I'm pretty sure it is all the Christmas decorations that are Made in China and Rejected by America.





Here is a view of our own little Christmas tree. It has a lot more presents now! Jeremy, Stephanie and I will be going to Japan for our 5 day Christmas holiday. On Dec. 23, before we go, Jeremy, Stephanie, Ben and I are having dinner and a small gift exchange at our apartment.


We have also been enjoying the holiday party season (Chinese style of course).

Our school organized a Christmas dinner for the foreign teachers on Friday night. It was at a nice Italian restaurant, buffet style (a really nice break from the Chinese Banquets). A few of the foreign teachers sang Christmas carols.
The Foreign Affairs Office, in charge of the event, organized a lottery. Jeremy won instant coffee and I won a USB drive. There were also REALLY cheesy games, including the limbo. Although it never game, I was just waiting for the hokey-pokey. The whole thing was a pretty werid experience, as the Chinese Administrators tried to emmulate Western culture for the westerners, but it was a really nice gesture. Afterwards we all went out downtown together. It was a lot of fun!

The next night one of the forgien teachers organized a potluck Chinglish Christmas party with a white elephant gift exchange. It was a lot of fun! Jeremy made Whiskey Hot Coco (I was dubious, but it turned out pretty well) and I found a Chinese Cake at the local bakery. Everyone dressed up in their best Chinglish.

Jeremy's Shirt says "Laugh & Peace all my real of the smile & Joy"

Stephanie and I opted for the comfy option of PJ's. It's really funny because the Chinese people will go out to run errands and hang out in full pj's. They are generally loud colors and always have a matching top and bottom. These particular PJ's came straight from the local shop next door for the low price of $4 (for both the top and bottom). If you can't tell, mine are Hello Kitty and Stephanie has what we think are Pokemon. You can't quite see, but my slippers say "Fish and Merry Rain" with a copyright symbol.

Cultural Event Day

Since we are living in one of the largest cities in the world there is always something to do. So I began cultural event day in order to explore the area in our own backyard. So Jeremy, Stephanie and I set out for Old Town and the Yu Yuan Gardens.

Old town is an area that has traditional Chinese architecture. However, because of it's traditional feel, it has become a massive tourist trap. With every single Chinese souvenir you can imagine.

"Hello lady. You like? You want Mao watch? I have real jade Buddha."

Men are pounding rice to make rice noodles.

Starbucks is everywhere!

Inside of Old Town is the Yu Yuan. It was a beautiful rock garden with ponds and bridges. It was a brisk fall day so there was virtually no one there. It was very peaceful.

An afternoon on Taikong lu

Today we took a 45 minute bike ride to a very cute area of Shanghai called Taikong Lu. It's a pedestrian area with twisting alleyways and tons of cute outdoor cafes, boutiques and art galleries. There are painters, sculptors, photographers, and all the artists open their studios for you to watch them work. It has a European feel with tiny streets and exposed brick. We spent the afternoon winding through the streets, then we found an Indochinese restaurant for lunch, and found another little cafe for a cup of coffee outside. It was a nice afternoon on a gorgeous day. Here are some pics:

A Chinese Thanksgiving

As many of you know, we live in an apartment style dormitory with about 60 ex-pats, most of whom are American, but there are some Brits and Aussies. On the Friday before Thanksgiving one of the girls organized a Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lot of fun! Our apartments are not equipped with a oven or stove, so it makes cooking quite difficult, however the school allowed us to use the home economics kitchens to cook. So there was a variety of delicious Thanksgiving sides. Believe it or not turkey is a North American animal, so we had other poultry such as Chinese roast duck and Kentucky Fried Chicken (a Chinese favorite...seriously they're everywhere!) Jeremy made his favorite Thanksgiving dish, "mom's candied yams," which turned out to be a HUGE hit!We also contributed some other holiday favorites

Friends and teachers

These are the girls with whom I take Chinese lessons.

Thanksgiving day we had the option to go to an all you can eat Thanksgiving buffet at a diner. Jeremy and I just couldn't picture homemade thanksgiving dinner at a diner. Instead we went back to the original roots of thanksgiving to celebrate with the Indians. Well, not exactly the right Indians, but these Indians provided a mean all you can eat/all you can drink Indian buffet, complete with entertainment.

Our Thanksgiving family dinner

The happiest and most energetic dancer ever!

Live video of the dancing.

As an aside, for class on Thanksgiving day, I let my students take a break to learn about the American holiday. I showed them Thanskgiving episodes from the TV show Friends. I taught them the colloquial vocab words used in the episode, then we watched the show, and they had to write a paragraph discribing Thanksgiving. Their answers were pretty entertaining. Everything from you have to have turkey and eat as much as you can to a harvest festival to a lie told to kids about Indians and Pilgrams. What is that holiday anyway? I'm not quite sure, but I know I really missed being with family.

The Forbidden City

The adventure continues... Off to the Forbidden City!

Squeezed into a golf cart on the way to the Forbidden City.

Walking into the Forbidden City

The inner court, surrounded by 1,000 stone dragons which symbolize power and double as the drainage system.

These lions are all over the Forbidden City. They are at almost every entrance. The one on the right is the male lion with his paw on a sphere which symbolizes power. The one on the left (featured here) is the lioness with her paw on a cub which symbolizes fertility.

The large stone structure was between staircases. It has 9 dragons on clouds which symbolize power. In order to move the structure, they waited until winter and sprinkled water on the ground in order to drag this huge structure on ice through the city.

After spending the afternoon at the Forbidden City we had about 4 hours until our train departed. We went back to the hotel to grab our bags and arrange for another driver to take us to Olympic Park.

2008 Beijing Olympic Park

There were about 30 people cleaning the water cube about half were rappelling down the side. It is made out of material that they bounced off...weird.

This marks the end of our 24 hour tour of Beijing. We had so much fun! The last stop was the train. Luckily, we made it on the 10 hour express train. However, we weren't able to arrange to stay in the same room. Our roommates were a cute little old Chinese couple. It made us realize that grandparents are the same everywhere you go. They were very excited to talk (in broken Chinese) to us and learn that we were teachers from America. Grandma said Jeremy's Chinese was very good, and she had to translate louder for Grandpa since he was hard of hearing. I helped her open the door in the middle of the night, and she told everyone the same story about 15 times. Sound familiar to anyone else? Love to the grandparents!

Train Roomies