This past Thanksgiving I was fortunate enough to attend TWO delicious dinners! The first one with close family friends (my Qingdao family!), and the second was with two great families and a few single girls. Both dinners were amazing, and I truly am thankful for friendship and the people that the Father has placed in my life here.
The Chinese people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so it was a good opportunity to talk to my students about our traditions, why we should be thankful, and what I am specifically thankful for. They laughed when I told them what and how much we eat! Chinese people don’t eat turkey, and of course, some of our side dishes and desserts sound completely strange to them. And the amount we eat surprised them. Traditionally, when the Chinese sit down to a feast or important dinner, there is at LEAST one different dish of food for each person. Most of the time there is more. So it’s kind of like a buffet, but it’s on a giant lazy susan on the table and everyone just picks a little bit from each dish and eats as the lazy susan slowly turns. They will eat a lot, but rarely will they completely finish a dish and leave it empty. And they almost never take the leftovers home. So when you think about it, our traditional dinner has the turkey, stuffing, and maybe 4-6 different sides plus 3 or 4 desserts? Depending on the number of guests that’s probably 1 or 2 dishes per person. The difference is, is that we’ll eat almost all of it! And then pack up the rest or leave it out for turkey sandwiches a few hours later! No wonder the Chinese think that most “Meiguo ren shi peng!” “Americans are fat!” :)
No comments:
Post a Comment