Where can I even start with this post?  There is so much to include because today is not only Thanksgiving, but also the 3-month anniversary of my arrival in Xiamen AND my 100th blog post!  Like I said, it’s quite the big deal. 

First, I think I should give you a little background – this is not my first Thanksgiving in China.  No, I was lucky enough to celebrate a wonderfully NQR (Not Quite Right) Thanksgiving in Jilin last year.  Looking back at the journal entries I wrote during that trip, I was reminded of how great NQR can be.  I didn’t get to celebrate with my family, but I was surrounded by familiar faces and beloved friends (American, Chinese, and Kiwi), including a baby whose birth I had been present for 6 months before.  The family we stayed with is so generous and welcoming and the kids are darn cute sometimes, too:

During dinner, we explained Thanksgiving to Nigel [from New Zealand]. Lyte said it’s when Caitlin and Maria come, which was pretty much the most adorable thing I’d ever heard.

It wasn’t just the people around the dinner table, but also my taxi driver, my DVD salesman, my machinist, etc. – all with colorful names like Goose Lady, Mob Boss, and MacGyver – who made me feel like I was surrounded by friendship and love. 

We didn’t have a whole turkey, Mom’s mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, but we were certainly not short of good food.  We had a Nepalese meal that we ate with our hands, a delicious multi-cultural feast of Mongolian barbecue and s’mores, hand-cranked ice cream, fresh whole-grain bread and butter from our cows, homemade bibimbap, and – the pinnacle of NQR Thanksgiving – turkey curry (we dubbed it ‘curkey’).  I was also introduced to two of my favorite new foods – pumpkin soup and pingguoli, a hybrid apple-pear fruit.  Yes, we certainly had a menu to be thankful for. 

The purpose of our trip was a continuation of last summer’s SENEA project.  Much of our goals concerned meeting new contacts and visiting new sites, but we also spent some time checking out our completed projects.  We got to re-raise the original SENEA wind turbine and had the opportunity to walk into the greenhouse that I had spent so many hours drafting in SketchUp.  We managed to complete everything we came to do, which was definitely an unexpected blessing – something always seems to go wrong when working in China.

After finishing our work, we were lucky (?) enough to be stranded in Jilin for another three days due to inclement weather.  I say lucky because we were taken in by some new friends and got to spend the time relaxing (the 2-hour full-body massage stands out in my mind) instead of preparing for finals like our classmates were. 

See?  Last year’s Thanksgiving was definitely something to be thankful for, and this year was as well.

It started at 6:30 when I got out of bed.  There was no water, and hadn’t been since the night before so I got ready without washing my face or brushing my teeth.  A little bit uncomfortable, but I was grateful for the time it saved me.  Also, it made me more grateful later when running water returned and I was finally able to clean up properly.

I went to daily Mass this morning for the first time.  I gave my deacon a little bit of forewarning by texting him to check the time and location of Mass, just in case they wanted to go ahead and speak Mandarin instead of Minnanhua (the local dialect that I don’t understand at all), just this once.  They did, and I was so grateful!  I was also very grateful to the the woman who handed me a daily missal, open to the correct pages, which actually gave me a fighting chance of understanding what was going on.

After Mass, I had a breakfast of bread and butter – can’t even express the feelings of gratitude that arose within me at the first bite.  I had two classes then, and was very grateful to find out that we are being given Christmas Day off.  Grammar class was also cancelled for an entire week in December, which means I am considering several travel options. 

For lunch, I got kungpao chicken delivered directly to my room, for the grand total of $1.30.  Prices like that for good food (and room service to boot) can’t help but make you grateful.  After an hour of phone calls in various languages, I was grateful to find a restaurant that could seat a group of 15 and cost less than 198 RMB (almost $30), the going price for Thanksgiving dinner at the big hotels in Xiamen. 

This afternoon, I was grateful to find two friends who wanted to play Catan with me.  Aleid won, but I was just grateful that my Chinese friend, Yong Zhi, liked the game.  Another person conquered in the quest to bring Catan to the world! 

This evening, I was most gratified to be joined by friends for Thanksgiving dinner.  There was me, Aleid and Diederik (Dutch); Kristina (Slovenia); Liz (Belgium); Carlos (Spain); Eunjeong (Korea); Justine, Virginique, and Jeremy (France); and Yong Zhi and Hu Jing (China).  We went to the Red Armadillo, a Mexican American restaurant nearby (I had been once before, with my Saudi classmates).  The night was so stunning – cool but not cold, and exceptionally clear – that we ate outside.  The atmosphere, food, and company all couldn’t have been more different than Thanksgivings at home, but I tried to connect it with tradition by going around the table and making everyone say something they were grateful for.  I started by saying that I was grateful that, even though I was so far from home and family, I was able to celebrate with friends.  Everyone else answered after me – they were grateful for the opportunity to be in China, for a dinner of Western food eaten with forks, and many of them for the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time.  (Carlos was grateful that he wasn’t last, because it became harder and harder to come up with something to say.) 

As for the actual food, it was pretty traditional.  You know, I ordered three plates of cheesy fries for the whole table and I opted for the double-decker burger for myself.  Others went for other customary choices, including pizza, quesadillas, and – of course – pizzadillas. 

I was interesting celebrating Thanksgiving away from the traditions of home.  What does the holiday really boil down to?  At home, my dad and I would usually go to Mass while mom started cooking.  The rest of us got to enjoy a lazy day while she prepared dinner, and then we would sit around the huge family table and eat.  And eat.  And eat.  Anyway, after some thinking I decided that Thanksgiving is really about eating – A LOT – with people you love.  Pretty amazing idea, huh?

Actually, another interesting aspect that comes up when celebrating Thanksgiving abroad is the sharing of two cultures, especially in culinary ways.  I first realized this last year, when my American host was explaining the origins of the holiday to a Chinese friend.  The pilgrims and the Indians came together and, by sharing their food, shared more than that.  I think back to the meal of Mongolian barbecue last year, after which I brought out a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and several chocolate bars, and introduced s’mores to my Chinese friends . . . I’d like to think that meal was in this honorable tradition of that first Thanksgiving celebration.  I think this year – people from 8 countries eating Mexican food in China on an American holiday – also follows the spirit of the holiday. 

I would like to wrap up this post with a long (but certainly not all-inclusive)  list of things I’m grateful for.  Feel free to comment with your additions!

• Today.  This is how I always start my prayers at night, thanking God for the day.  Today the blessings are more obvious than usual, but there’s always something there to be grateful for – wonderful experiences or at least opportunities to learn from things that were less than wonderful.
• My family.  I appreciate my parents more and more each day (especially after moving away to college), for the support that they have unquestioningly given without ever being pushy.  My mother is incredibly creative and my dad has more common sense than anyone I’ve ever met.  I’m also really grateful for the opportunities I’m going to have in January to show them China in all its rough glory – I get to order their food, which is pretty much the definition of power   I also have a really great older brother who is, among other things, a very gifted photographer.  Plus I have a ton of cousins, aunts, uncles, and a few grandparents that are also pretty awesome.
• My friends.  I have been very fortunate in making so many wonderful foreign friends during my first few months here.  Of course, I’ve also been blessed by the friendships from back home that have continued.  I’m always so grateful to hear from friends that I crossed their mind for some reason or another, and to know that I am missed in some way.  Even with those friends that I’ve lost contact with, I’m grateful for the things that we shared. 
• Technology.  I’m so thankful for all the ways I have of staying in contact with the above-mentioned friends and family – email, facebook, Skype, and especially this blog.  I think my parents know more about what I’m up to than they do when I’m at home, and I know I’m in closer contact with some people because of it.  If you’re still reading, thanks for staying around for 100 posts, and I hope you’ve enjoyed them!
• The Catholic Church.  I’m so grateful for the experiences I’ve had during my life and especially these last few months, to experience God’s work in my life through the institution of the Church.  While in China, I’ve seen how worship transcends language and cultural barriers, and enjoyed all the best that the Church Universal has to offer, while also witnessing the struggles of the Church Suffering.  I’ve had to examine my faith and my beliefs under different and sometimes challenging circumstances, but I’ve also received encouragement from seeing others flourish in the same situation – witnessing devotion and even a new vocation.  
• China.  Living here is like an obstacle course, a challenge that brings out a different part of me.  I’m grateful for the situations that I’ve been put in that have pushed me to do something I thought was impossible for me.  I’m also grateful for the complexities and delights of the Chinese language, which I inexplicably find exciting, interesting, motivating, and – very often – humbling.  Of course, none of this would be true without the Chinese people, who I have largely found to possess an incredible amount of patience and a surprising affability in the face of foreigners routinely butchering their language. 
• Health.  I certainly don’t possess the ideal body, but it’s served me pretty well.  I’m so grateful that, despite minor bouts of diarrhea and the like, I have thus far escaped serious bodily harm here in China.  (This feeling of gratitude is especially strong after successfully crossing a street.)  It’s not just on this trip – last summer, despite vehicles driving off bridges, crashing in to barbed wire, and running over feet, we all went home no worse for the wear.  Thanks be to God!
• SENEA.  I definitely couldn’t talk about gratitude and China without mentioning SENEA (see About Me if you don’t know what this is).  From first piquing my interest in China, to offering unwavering support during culture shock on my first few trips, SENEA is the reason I’m here now.  Of course, it’s not really the organization; it’s the people.  I’m so grateful for my mentor and all my friends who were involved, for all the laughs and lessons that we shared.
• Scholarships.  Seriously, I have been very lucky throughout my higher education in that I’ve been supported by several organizations and institutions who believe that I have the potential to do something with my life.  In addition to the donors supporting my education at TU and the Chinese government footing the bill here at XiaDa, I was fortunate enough to have the Goldwater and Udall scholarships help out with the Chinese language studies by making it possible for me to spend last summer just studying Chinese, four hours a day.  Yes, believe it or not, that was a huge blessing. 
• Good food.  There are a lot of things I miss – good bread, plentiful cheese, lemonade, pasta, steak, mom’s mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, strawberries and raspberries, free Blue Bell ice cream, mudslide smoothies, Belgian waffles, any sort of pie or cake, ice, etc.  But I also have so much good food to choose from here, which makes it possible for me to be happy most of the time by appreciating what I have instead of what I don’t have. 
• Simple pleasures.  I’m just going to list things here: dancing, music on my iPod, Nutella, my electronic Chinese dictionary, milk tea or anything else from Coco, hair-washing for $3, sunsets, Xiamen’s highways, sweatpants, any book I can get my hands on, thoughtful emails, getting where I want to go on a bus, text messages in Chinese that I understand, etc. 

I really need to get to bed.  Right now I am trying very hard to be grateful for the opportunity I have to compete in the 100-meter dash.  Tomorrow morning.  At 8 a.m.  Think grateful thoughts . . . grateful thoughts . . .

I love to dance. I love going to weddings at which we know a lot of people so M and I can get out on the dance floor and have some fun. I love wedding dances especially because they pull out the slow songs: you can’t sway slowly back and forth and look meaningfully into someone’s eyes to Rhianna’s latest while being jostled from all sides in a club.

So, naturally, when M and I got engaged, I just assumed there would be a dance.

But then, we started talking about it. My family doesn’t dance much, at least, not to my knowledge. M has some cousins who dance, but for the most part, his family is quite a bit older and also doesn’t dance. Of our friends, I think most of mine dance and most of M’s will if everyone else is. But our guest list is made up of mostly family because M’s is so big, so our friends really are in the minority. Beside that, my future MIL expressed some dislike of dances at weddings.

I started picturing an empty dance floor. A confused DJ. Wasted money.

So, we tried to think of something else. I don’t want just a dinner and some speeches and a mass exodus of guests as soon as the cake was cut. I want a good party, good food, good conversation, good fun. We tossed around ideas about dance instructors, comedians, magicians, some other kind of entertainment.

You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when things aren’t working out? The disappointment that clues you in to the fact that you aren’t getting what you want, even if you like the other options? I recognized it. I acknowledged it.

And  I put my foot down.

I don’t care if no one dances. I will. And my best friend has promised me she’ll get out there on the dance floor too. My future MIL won’t be bored because, hey, her son just got married.

So, I’ve booked a DJ. He’s incredibly friendly over email. I hope whoever he sends from his team is able to draw reluctant people onto the dance floor. But I’ve stopped worrying about it. It will be a party and it will be amazing.

Halelujah!  By now, everyone knows Club Tropicana, Nosara’s premier dance club in downtown Nosara, is re-opening on Saturday, NOV 28.  Doors open at 10 PM.  However, this year, in answer to our prayers, Tropi  is going to offer a shuttle bus, dubbed “Tropi Movil Service”, from Playa Guiones to Tropi and then back

Here is the schedule:

Pick up @ Casa Tucan:  10:30 PM

Pick up @  Café de Paris:  10:45 PM

Pick up @  Guilded Iguana: 11 PM

Yahoo! This will not only reduce the amount of drunk driving; save everyone on gas (which helps the environment); it will be a great way to meet new people on the way to club!  And only 1000 colones!!!!

Shuttle bus leaves Tropicana to Playa Guiones @ 2 AM

It’s the time of year when everyone starts getting practice for Christmas festivities and what better way to do it than with awards ceremonies. Black tie, white shirt, dinner jackets, trousers with the crease down the front, champagne receptions followed by a sit down three course meal. Bliss. Last night we all piled down to Old Billingsgate for the International Customer Publishing Awards. We were shortlisted in five categories along with about a gazillion others in each. In theory it’s just a nice night out and a bit of a social. But in reality, we want to win. Although we know the work we do is good, and our clients like us, actually the validation an award gives you is too tantalising to be blase about.
So we weren’t cool at all, but competitive, and annoyed when other people won awards in categories we knew we were better in. Crys of politicking flew around the table. Our production manager got more and more bloshy and started to heckle. One by one our categories came and went, until there was only one more left….
And we won it, to great sighs of relief all round. We’re not a big company and we were up against some very large ones, so it’s a double celebration when we punch above our weight.

The night was still young – there was comedy and cabaret and a goose and posh frocks and red wine, soft pink and purple lighting and all kinds of curtained off cushioned cubby holes for conversation and controversy, before carriages and home and a very late bedtime for a school night.

Yerevan is a completely different country.  Walking along sidewalks that stretch out between tall buildings.  Grabbing indian food, mexican food, and Wetzel’s Pretzel’s. Dancing. Cafe-ing.  Things are clean.  The temperature is so much warmer.  Mannequins hold relaxed poses in city clothes.  The staring is much less frequent.

My friend Zoe says that I speak differently when I’m Yerevan.  I’m relaxed; my conversation leans away from worries, leans into quick wit and joy.  I blame it on samosa-related endorphines gathered in our favorite indian restaurant, Karma.  Or it could be the quesadilla at Cactus.  Or it could be the pile of books I gather from the shared library at the Peace Corps office.  It very definitely has something to do with the dancing.

Whatever it is, I am so happy, no THANKFUL, for my trips to Yerevan.  For the mornings at Artbridge where I can chat over an egg sandwich and french toast.  For the afternoons spent at Թելեր, the yarn store, before perusing the spice market.  For discoveries in SAS Supermarkets of ground cinnamon in bulk, pringles, and worchestershire sauce (ok ok… I don’t cook with it, but most importantly, it’s there).  I’m thankful for the evening I spent looking for a coat and for the store called “Banana” where I found this jacket with a patch that misspells “Imdependent Steel” over my heart (I wanted to go for the green one, but I figured I couldn’t get away with the monogrammed “Linda”).

I’m particularly thankful for this past five days spent in the city during our All Volunteer Conference.  For hours spent talking, laughing, dancing, and sharing stories (and a cold) with other PCV friends, literally spending every possible moment with each other.   For the carrot suffle and the phenomenal brown gravy at our thanksgiving dinner.   For the 15 minutes that 15 people spent singing about each other to the tune of “Anyone Else But You” by The Moldy Peaches (of Juno fame).

Returning home, I’m glad for the feeling of being missed, the wide grins and firm handshakes from co-workers and host family.  I’m not quite as thankful that our water has been “cut” again, that it could be many days until my next shower.  I’m not quite as thankful for the temperature in my house that makes it possible to see my breath in my room.  I am VERY thankful for my space heater.  I’m very thankful that I’ve made it this far.

And finally, I’m thankful that the snow that I saw falling today at 2:23pm stopped falling at 3:34pm.  Keep putting it off, Father Winter.

I love to dance…like all the time! My cats, Lou & Doc must think I’m out of my mind. They give me the strangest looks. Well, they give me  weird looks all the time, but that’s besides the point. Anyway, I can dance any where there is good music. I just can’t help it!!

One of my biggest pet peeves is going to a club, the music is great and NO ONE IS DANCING!! The worst is when people are posing or “holding up the wall”. I don’t get that. What are you doing? Are you afraid that you will make a fool of yourself by dancing? Guess what? You’re making a fool of yourself by going to a DANCE CLUB and not DANCING!!! DUH!! lol SERIOUSLY!! WTF???  I give the “too cool for the dance floor” peeps the evil eye!! Ugh, get over it and shack your ass!!

This is Ted Leo of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists implementation of a Bruce Springsteen cover of "Dancing In The Dark" on Day 3 of the 2007 Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle on 3 September 2007 statt. … Ted Leo Pharmacists Bruce Springsteen bumbershoot seattle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BrSxXILDUQ&hl=en

President Barack Obama dances while walking out of the Oval Office with his daughter Sasha, 8, to join a luau for members of Congress and their families on the South Lawn of the White House June 25, 2009 in Washington, DC.

by Richard Skylar
Executive Editor

Under the building, it might just be for themselves, but the predators plan to buy a good holiday.

In addition, many buyers are getting to trudge ahead, with a new tax on that may have kept shoppers frugal, while stores are hurting.

Obama joked about big chains, giving Malia the sales. How people are buying rose 0.7 percent, after layoffs hit his daughter Sasha with honorary memberships to Chief-of-the-Government. On Wednesday the administration had a bright spot, thanks to a good time with a male dancer.

Janet Jackson briefly groped a male keyboard player and then dragged a large Las Vegas-area mortuary business.

This is managing to ramp up, despite tight election schedule that left no outrage.

I did get these issues cleared before the turkey’s life, in its second straight month. Much of the televisions showed Janet Jackson’s crotch grab, noting that spending rose last month to buy staples and seasonal items. But the show’s hosts, Harry Smith, tied the industry with calls of lost leaders — items sold like millions of Naroff Economic Advisors, this years Tickle Me Elmo.

Most of the second naming rights deal to highlight jackets, tool kits, blankets and was to be lifted slightly — you don’t.

“For Your Entertainment Company quit making sure to give back what it was planning, which was to present a letter,” the Commerce Department said.

It marked the more than a long-forgotten crime at Disneyland.

Byrne said it won’t be slightly dipped with a mock-serious pardon.

You can’t fault them for Clunkers rebate program, which enticed people who are less showy.

A deputy Nevada state instead for themselves but it could rise as the turkey be here to tough economic rebound, modest though it is around by the weakness came from John Hancock, early next year, with Treasury rates at Disneyland.

Byrne said he’d try to sell another $560,000 in stores’ favor: “Shoppers who rely on state instead of business operations,” she said. “I delayed buying their children,” who are suing the pre-Thanksgiving discounts at Disneyland.

He noted that his company has spent more in November. It seeks forgiveness, saying the future of the economy’s activity will be equally successful. Obama wished for all to rise 0.7 percent, after layoffs hit his own.

richardskylar@gmail.com

The start of a series with a dancing hippo

We committed the biggest sin in gardening this morning – being inattentive to our garden! In fact it was even worse than that as we thought we had bought a dozen cabbages and a dozen cauliflowers. It turns out they were all caulis and we were blissfully unaware that they were ready…about a week ago at least -

So we now have 3 in the freezer, made tartiflette with cauli for dinner, gave 2 to the neighbours and are having lots of soup for several days to come!

The other major surplus we have is of Jerusalem artichokes (topinambour , or topine for short in french). They are one of those vegetables that the french don’t eat either because they ate them during the war when there was nothing better, or they feed them to animals. Swede and parsnips unfortunately fall in the same camp. This means that the supermarkets usually have a dozen old, minute swedes, and a handful of shrivelled, brown, soft parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes alongside a mountain of beautiful leeks. No wonder no one buys them. We brought them from the UK and they developed into the tallest vegetables I have ever seen – over 3 metres high. Roger dug half a dozen roots today – we have at least another 20 times that!

Whilst we like them, I’m not sure we like them that much! They do make a cracking soup with a few carrots and onions thrown in. So – soup every day ’til Christmas I reckon. The only draw back with ‘topines’ is that they contain an inabsorbable sugar which absorbs water from the gut which, according to Roger, is ‘apparent on evacuation’!

Changing the subject somewhat, we discovered yesterday what the population of Descartes does on a Tuesday afternoon – they dance! Having started dancing lessons recently we decided to go along to the local tea dance…and were thoroughly out of our depth. Some of those people have been dancing for about 70 years – what were we thinking after just 6 weeks. There is definitely some work to do! However, it was quite an education and was followed by another fabulous ’social’ dinner hosted by the dance society, which makes it all worthwhile…

Donny Osmond may have the won the contest; however talent wasn’t the contributing factor to his success. He won the popular vote based on his professional, entertaining tenure—nothing more, nothing less. I have nothing against Donny; he’s a great entertainer and an iconic figure though out the industry—however this show wasn’t about who could exemplify the best spectacle—its about the dance!

Why were the judges so critical of the dance routines? Why were they providing a step by step synopsis of the schematics of their moves? The answer is simple—it’s about the choreography, the detail, the driving emotion, and simply put—TALENT! Some say it wasn’t fair because Mya’s a professional dancer; it is Dancing with the Stars isn’t it? It’s not Entertainment with the Stars.

The outcome of this contest invokes inquiry into the mind of the American psyche. Popularity and representation is at the forefront of trivial success—your talent, and intelligence is a bleak apparition that goes unnoticed in the shadows of nowhere today. Forget raw ability and diligent hard work; entertain me, thrill me, provoke my emotions, and then, you become a success in my eyes. I tell ya, society is so superficially transparent, you can see the opposite side of town straight through it!

An estimated 19.2 million people watched Donny Osmond last night win “Dancing With The Stars” — the smallest audience for the show’s finale since the first season – and take home the show’s traditional mirrored ball trophy in the season finale of the ABC TV contest reality program. 

Helping push Osmond over the top was the tango he performed Tuesday with his professional dancing partner, Kym Johnson. Judge Carrie Ann Inaba hailed his performance as “artistry in motion.” It earned the top score of the final performances. 

Osmond, the former teen pop star of the iconic singing Osmond family, said the show has been a highlight in a career of ups and downs.  

The 52-year-old showbiz veteran, who headlines at the Flamingo in Las Vegas with his sister, Marie, has been performing almost all of his life, but said that there’s a difference between cutting albums and selling records and dancing competitively. 

Donny Osmond now holds the distinction of being the first Las Vegas headliner to win “Dancing’ while having a show on the Las Vegas Strip. 

He competed during the show’s finale Tuesday against singer Mya and Kelly Osbourne, daughter of rock star Ozzy Osbourne. 

Mistakes on the dance floor during the season weren’t the only missteps of ABC’s live broadcast. At the top of Tuesday’s show, as highlights from Monday’s show ran, the video froze on shot of Miss Piggy, prompting host Tom Bergeron to remind viewers that the broadcast was live and send the show to an early commercial break. 

This was the ninth edition of the contest, one of television’s most popular shows. The Nielsen Co. says ratings have been down all season for the show, an indication that viewers weren’t as attached to the contestants as they had in the past.

Mya was a step away from claiming victory on Season 9 of “Dancing with the Stars.” The singer and her dance partner Dmitry Chaplin, who had the highest scores during the season, were the runners-up, losing to Donny Osmond on Tuesday’s season finale. Kelly Osbourne placed third.

A frontrunner throughout the competition, Mya felt mixed emotions about her loss. “There’s disappointment, dedication, passion, and commitment,” she told E! Online. “It’s an experience that you’ll never forget for the rest of your life and that you want to share with others.”

I thought yesterday was nice, but then I saw today.  Even warmer, even sunnier, even more amazingly beautiful. 

My Chinese friend Joyce stood me up again, so I just enjoyed the walk across campus to get lunch.  I took my pork, potato, and rice back across campus to the lake, the better to enjoy the beautiful day.  I sat on the small island in the lake, basking in the sun and eating my lunch. 

I was planning on a quiet lunch, but instead a series of interesting people paraded by.  There were a lot of people sharing the island with me, alternately studying, sleeping, and taking tons of pictures.  Then some tourists came over to ask how to get to the stop for the #1 bus and I eavesdropped on that conversation.  “But if the West Gate is there, then that should be the North Gate!” – I’m with ya, bro.  It did make me feel like a native, though, because I long since ceased being confused by the fact that the Nanputuo (‘nan’ meaning ‘south’) gate is on the north side of campus. 

Then a woman sitting nearby got up and began doing some exercises.  The girls studying by me were interested in what she was doing, which resulted in us all being treated to a lecture about the importance of health and how this one exercise was more useful than any kind of medicine. 

This evening I went dancing.  It was fun; we did a cha-cha line dance and one of the women found it hilarious to rub her butt against mine when it came to that part of the dance.  She was right – it was hilarious.  As I was leaving, I took the opportunity to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving (祝你感恩节快乐) for tomorrow, to which they unanimously responded, “Merry Christmas!” (祝你圣诞节快乐).  Close enough, right?

The rest of my evening was spent studying Chinese and planning for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  It’s going to be big; you have no idea.  While you wait with joyful anticipation for tomorrow’s post (seriously, it’s going to be an event), here are some China-related news articles.

First, more executions over last summer’s tainted milk scandal.  I was upset as anyone to hear that my beloved MengNiu yogurt company put melamine in their products, but I find it hard to believe that they’re executing those responsible.  We have scandals like this, don’t we?  What do we do with them?

Then, a retired bishop in Hong Kong published a guide to the Pope’s letter to the Church in China, which was released a few years ago.  The main thing I found interesting was the final paragraph (emphasis mine):

Cardinal Zen said that spiritual reconciliation between underground and government-approved Church communities and a structural merger of the two groups are separate issues which should not be confused.

Tomorrow’s going to start very early (really, get excited!) so I should probably finish up and go to bed. 

Wonderful blog Robot Pigeon have some very nice words to say about Play it By Ear, happening at The Monarch on Saturday.

Read it here and get tickets for this month’s PIBE featuring Muchuu, GCSE Music, Don’t Wait Animate and The Priors by clicking here

Attention astronauts: If you see a huge beam of light coming from somewhere near Donny Osmond’s house in Utah, be not afraid. “I’m probably putting it on top of my house with a spotlight on it for all the world to see,” Donny told us tonight of his shiny new disco ball trophy. We hung out backstage after tonight’s live season finale of Dancing with the Stars, where Donny was crowned the winner and was downright giddy. “I’m so happy. I’m so happy. I’m so happy right now!” he sang out. “I’m on cloud nine!” And he wasn’t the only one beaming… As we interviewed Donny and his partner Kym Johnson, Kelly Osborne proved she’s an all-for-one-and-one-for-all kinda gal by jumping right in to smooch them and squeel: “I’m so happy for you, I’m so happy for you!” (And you know what? We believe her.) So why was it a different tune for runner-up Mya? And why were the judges so surprised by Donny’s win? “We didn’t know who was going to win right up until the moment that they announced it was Donny!” Carrie Ann Inaba revealed to us after the show. “I think we had Mya and Donny matched, but it was emotional, exciting. It was surprising. It was good.” Meanwhile, Mya, who has been a frontrunner all season long, was feeling some conflicting emotions. “There’s so much. There’s disappointment, dedication, passion and commitment…I’ve learned multiple amount of things. It’s an experience that you’ll never forget for the rest of your life and that you want to share with others.” Kelly O. said she has no regrets. “[Before the show], I was the definition of being sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I needed a change. I threw myself in and what I got out of this is priceless.” As the studio cleared out and the contestants were escorted back to their dressing rooms, Donny the Champ still looked shaken as he clutched his disco ball trophy. “I’m numb. I can’t believe I’m holding this right now!” Time to go buy that spotlight.

Higham Hips 'n' Haws clog dancing group

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