Holidays!!

Fuyang, being on the east coast, is a lot more westernized than Tongzi was. Beginning in Dec. all the shops put up Christmas decorations and started playing Christmas music, I almost felt like I was back in the states. And on Christmas all the employees in the shops wore little Santa hats, but when I asked them if they knew what the hats meant they all said no, and when I tried to explain Santa by saying the fat man, with a white beard who says hohoho they didn't understand. But they do have a name for Santa in Chinese that they all know, 圣诞老人, translates into Christmas old man.

They schools took all of the foreign teachers in town out to dinner at the 5-star International hotel. Someone had said it was going to be western food, which would have been awesome since they have an amazing western buffet there, but it was Chinese food. And I guess I don't yet know what 5-star quality Chinese food taste like because if just tasted like good Chinese food to me. One of the interesting dishes was beef served on a cow skull!!

Micah and I didn't celebrate Christmas at all, we both don't care. But we did go out to karaoke the night before with Mark, our full of energy Chinese friend. That was our second time going to karaoke with him, and we couldn't believe he wanted to rehash the first time after hearing our horrible American karaoke. Anyways, it's always a lot of fun hanging out with him, so long as we can keep up with his energy.

On Christmas day we ended up going into Hangzhou to buy some things to make some western food for out Hanukkah party the next day. We invited a couple of our Chinese friends who seemed interested in Hanukkah to my place for a small party. Our party was kind of a disaster. First, we thought there were going to be 10 people, and only 5 came, so we made way too much food. And then on top of that our Chinese guests weren't used to western food and didn't understand why we were eating sweet mashed apples (applesauce) with deep fried shredded potatoes (lattkahs), well maybe if we hadn't burnt the edges they would've looked more appetizing. Then we tried to light the candles but they didn't want to join, so they just watched and looked uncomfortable because they didn't understand. Only my 7 yr-old student helped us set up the hanukkiya. And for dinner we served kugel, which they thought was cake and didn't like because it's sweet. They also didn't really eat the stuffed cabbages, or couscous. And the chicken that they did like was still in the oven to finish baking until we were almost finished and full. Also our friend, who owns a restaurant brought some flaming, deer soup and fried, tiny fish with him, maybe he was anticipating our western food, so he and his wife ate a lot of that.
After dinner we cleared the table and taught them how to play dreidle. I didn't make them out of clay, I just wrote the letters on some tops. My student had a blast playing. But we played with these little gold wrapped chocolate peanuts we'd found, and been so proud of, but the chocolate was horrible and even the little girl didn't want to take any home with here. Micah also made sugar cookies that we put blue icing on, that made everyone's mouths blue, haha. Oye vay what a night. But at least Micah and I had good leftovers for the next week ;)

I'd promised a couple of my classes a party and so I made a bunch of dreidles and cut up little pieces of paper to play with. I played music for them, taught them a little about Hanukkah and also about how we party in the US for New Year's eve. I even brought in a little candy for them, yeah I know I'm a push over... At least Hanukkah in my classes and with my students was a lot of fun. I'm friends with the head teacher, Sunny, of class 17 and so I invited him to the party in his class and the boys in the class had a great time joking around with him.








The school also allowed the students a day break before the New Year. And they celebrated with student performances. They turned out ok, I just think that even if these students are really talented, they are so busy studying that they don't have enough time to practice these kinds of things. My students from Tongzi had much wittier and interesting performances.
This was one of the better performances. These three students playing this Chinese zither instrument perfectly in time together. I tried to search for the instrument and I think maybe it's the Guzheng...? These students definitely had talent.
There was also a group of students who dressed up like the ethnic people of this region and and did some traditional dancing that was nice.

This is one difference between China and the States that they care more about their ancient culture to learn how to play all these instruments and learn ethnic dances. I feel like we Americans have lost our roots and don't care to preserve our ancestral traditions or culture.

And they actually celebrate New Year's eve here! I couldn't believe it after being in Tongzi where everyone sleeps like it's any other night. So we went out to Music House, this western style bar with Filipino singers and American music. Some of our friends were there so we got to party with them and had an actual countdown! It was definitely a lot of fun!

Happy New Year!! 2012