Thanksgiving Trees
This past week, the freshman and sophomore English majors were informed that each class would be required to hold a “Thanksgiving Party” on Wednesday afternoon. There’s nothing to put you in a festive mood like an order from on top to party! In our classes, we teach that Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated with one’s family, and is rarely celebrated by parties. However, in China, holidays equal formal parties and formal parties equal performances, flambloyant hosts, and organized games. One of the party activities this year was the great holiday tradition of Thanksgiving trees. So you haven’t heard of this tradition? You’ve never seen it done in America? Well, who knows where they got the idea, but the students cut out colored paper into various shapes and wrote what they were thankful for on the papers. The papers were then festively hung from the trees outside our department’s building. The result were trees that look colorfully decorated for Christmas…too bad the messages are unlikely to linger until then. Regardless, it is good that the department did get one thing right about Thanksgiving…it’s all about what we’re thankful for.
One of the most common Chinese idioms/wishes: “Happy everyday”.
Thankful for love.
Thankful for “Grandparents have a good time during their lifetime. China.”
Don’t you love the assortment of shapes? Stars, apples, butterflies, Mickey Mouse, arrows…
And my personal favorite: feet.
Hi friend, thanks for your posts, sorry to be neglectful yet again. I couldn’t get to your site for a few days last week–I was afraid they found you after all 🙂 Anyway, getting ready to send another package and just wanted to make sure that you got the Thanksgiving one (coffee, pumpkin, treats). Love much, talk soon…probably email or goog style.