The Christmas Scandal

I've been to the gym, had a hot shower, and now my dinner is being made for me -- ah yes, its a wonderful life! I have to note that Jason refused to enter the kitchen until I washed and put away the mountain of dishes in there (that I hadn't done from yesterday) but I guess happiness has its small prices to pay.

I wonder how many times people read Jason's spin on things in our newsletter and then compare it to my view here and wonder if we're in the same country sometimes? Really? Really, that's what you thought happened? Actually that's why he's the letter writer because all my letters would be more like journals telling you what goes on. Therefore I blog. That way it doesn't matter if you skip to the end just to look at the photos.

For some reason, the Chinese think its rather odd that we celebrate Christmas all throughout December. Their longest holiday is Spring Festival aka Chinese New Year aka Chūn Jíe so during that time they do multiple activities, host a number of parties and give gifts but since someone somewhere said that Christmas actually has a date they don't understand all this pre-celebration. So after I sent the text message to all our friends inviting them to a Christmas party on the 19th, they were confused. And then, just to confuse them all the more, I asked them to bring an unlabeled gift for a game of 'White Elephant'.

"But who will it be for?"

"No one specifically -- it just goes under a tree and when we play the game, you can either pick a present or steal one from someone else."

"But how do I know what to buy if I don't know who its for?"

"It doesn't matter -- just get anything cheap. Its just for a fun game."

"But who will get the present I bring?"

etc...etc...etc...

Jason tries his hand at sharing the Christmas story in Mandarin. He has the first line down and hopes to add a few more by next Christmas.

Try explaining that in Chinglish via text messages.

Playing White Elephant with a bunch of Chinese was at first, a very long, drawn out, slightly painful experience. We said they had to pick the first present they touched or steal someone elses. So for the first time ever, none of them wanted to rip anyone off so they took forever to choose a gift from under the tree. There were roughly 30 people and we played by order of birthdays so of course mine rolls around fairly quickly (because I'm in April not because I'm old) so I started off the stealing process. I knew I was most likely not going to come out on top this game I just wanted to get the ball rolling. Before too long (say, 10pm) one of my Chinese friends finally got the idea and said "Oh! Its like a scandal!" Well, now that you put it that way...

This is actually a webcam -- no we weren't bugged the whole evening but welcome to the land of 'cute junk'. Don't forget to put this on your list for Santa -- it will go really well with the fluffy pink cover for your computer mouse.

The first time I've ever seen a stuffed animal as the coveted gift in a White Elephant game!

Note to self: Better re-title the game to "White Elephant Scandal" or better yet, leave "Elephant" out of the title all together because that is rather hard to explain to people who's first culture is not western.

So the "scandal" continued until my American friend and I realized if we didn't cap this now, it was going to go on all night! And we still wanted to share the real meaning of Christmas, sing carols and eat more food...

Later that evening, as the guests were leaving, one of my Chinese friends came to say goodbye to me. She said (in little English, something like this), "I'm so happy share my first time celebrating a foreigner holiday such as Christmas with you. Its not like my English text book describe at all!" Thinking that maybe the text book got the 'real' story askew or something along those lines she said "oh, no. My book says: Foreigners sit by a Christmas tree and share special gifts that they have bought specifically for one another in love. Now I know how you really have a Christmas scandal and its such fun!"

Uh, yeah. Something like that!

So where ever you are in the globe, however you're celebrating this wonderful holiday, drinking your eggnog by a fire or waiting in line for a dunny on the beach, think of us (cause we're thinking of all of you) and I'll leave you with this little reminder -- the translation of the Chinese greeting for the holiday: Shèng Dàn Jié literally means 'birthday of the Emperor above all emperors'.

Merry Christmas!

圣诞节快乐！

Rachel -- 24th of December, 2009