You know what's funny? I have, on more than one occasion, had Chinese takeout for Thanksgiving. Then I move to China, and it's turkey-and-stuffing all the way.
Well, fried chicken was as close as we could get, actually. We were going to go with KFC for an extra dollop of Americana, but scrapped that plan after an unfortunate scouting mission last week that I swear included my first encounter with dog meat. (I don't want to talk about it. I just want to forget.)
There was cranberry sauce and genuine Stovetop stuffing, kindly schlepped from the States by our program director, who was making her annual rounds of all the China posts. Beth mashed up some potatoes, and I trekked to the import store for a can of pumpkin puree, which we baked into one helluva delicious pumpkin pie in the toaster oven with a crust of crumbled crackers that we usually eat with our coffee.
There was also salsa and guacamole, because our intrepid program director also smuggled us a few avocados, bless her heart. You haven't lived until you've had salsa on mashed potatoes.
Lucy and Star came over to help us celebrate, highly entertained by our stories of birds so big they barely fit in the oven, and were downright intoxicated by the utterly foreign taste of avocados.
So, you know I avoid the schmaltz like cancer, but I think my defenses have been weakened by a week's worth of listening to my students' "What I'm grateful for" speeches, and maybe just a little sprinkling of homesickness ... In any case, here's what I'm thankful for:
That I haven't been hauled off to a Chinese labor camp (yet). That the mercury finally cracked 40F today. That I can still watch American TV, thanks to the witchcraft of the Internets and China's ultra-relaxed attitude toward copyright. Also: That my family still puts up with me. That I have a solid handful of friends who stuck with me through some bad times, and a growing handful of friends to share the (hopefully) better times to come.
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