Christmas in China

Well this has been an interesting week.  In a lot of ways it didn’t feel like there was any Christmas happening here.  Christmas is about a lot of things, but only those unimportant parts happen in China.  There might be Christmas trees and gifts, but without Christ and family what is the meaning of Christmas?

 

On Sunday I decided to wait to tell Flagship about my decision to return home until Monday.  That was when I was meeting with the internship coordinator and I only felt it was fear to hear his thoughts on matters before making a decision.

Meeting with him was actually a pleasant surprise.  He thought it would actually be the best idea for me to go home this winter semester and finish up school, and then in the summer come back to China and finish up my flagship internship.  This is great, because this way I can do everything that I wanted to.

So that is what I am doing now.  I will come home on the 12th, and finish up all of my classes.  I am already in all of the classes I need except one.  Pray for me that that teacher will decide to let me join.

 

Well, later that night we had FHE.  It was a lot of fun.  We made ginger bread houses.  Probably one of the most interesting parts of the night was when one of the girls, Sharlyn, decided to brag about her Gongfu, and after I may have teased her a bit about it, decided to “put the hurt” on me.  Lets just say it didn’t go well for her.  :)  It was fun to let her try though.  It reminded me a lot of fighting with Chris when we were younger.  Both stood about zero chance, sorry Chris, but that didn’t mean they didn’t try.

 

Tuesday night Trevor, I, and our two roommates came over and we watched a movie called 《让子弹飞》.  It was a cool movie, a lot like westerns in America.  It was also fun because I was able to understand most of it, a wonderful affirmation to have when translating in Church on Sunday showed me how bad my Chinese was!

Wednesday night was another movie night, but this time it was with a bunch of Americans.  I went over to the Shurilla’s and watched a movie called RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous).  It was so fake with how overdone it was, and it was just hilarious.  It was good to just chill with everyone as well.

 

Christmas type activities started on Friday.  In the morning Trevor and I went to a store called Metro to pickup food for the ward party on Christmas day.  At the store we had a wonderful view of what an indoor rainstorm would look like.  One of the pipes in the roof had burst and it was literally raining.  It was especially fun watching a bunch of Chinese people scurry around, trying desperately to figure out how to fix the problem.  They were all getting dressed up in their wet suits trying their best to stop the rain.  It was just the cutest.

Well after finishing shopping we decided to go to get all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ.  It was under 10 dollars USD a person.  Not bad at all.  Our table had a built in grill, and we would just go and get plates of meat to grill.  There was also a good selection of pre-made dishes.  One of my favorite was some cabbage, cooked with bacon, and sprinkled with brown sugar.  It was very tasteful.  They also had a good selection of soups, sushi, fruit, and even ice cream.  Overall a very yummy day!  I will have to go back there before too long.

At night I had a Christmas party where I played Santa at the beginning.  The party was run by the government.  My part was to dress up as Santa and greet people as they came in.  We also gave candy to the children.  It didn’t work to well, as most people couldn’t care less about Santa, or the kids were scared of us.  But let me tell you, I was at least a really good Santa.  We borrowed a killer costume from some friends in the ward.

 

Saturday was another set of parties.  The first was in the morning at the couples mansion.  Laura and Chris helped cook a breakfast, and we also had a secret Santa gift exchange.  It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed myself.  I got a cool DVD with Pixar movie shorts on it.  Fun-fun.

After that party I nearly directly went to another party, the one that the branch was putting on.  It wad some good food, and some really good desserts.  There was also a white elephant gift section where I got some play-doh.  That was a really fun party as well.

After that several of us went and sung Karaoke.  Certainly a Chinese way to celebrate a holiday :)  Once again, I pushed my voice to far.  I already had a sour throat, and I think I must have song until I couldn’t sing anymore.

As soon as Karaoke was done, we went to see a performance by Sharlyn’s Gongfu master.  He was actually really cool.  I really have got to learn a martial art some time.  After that we all went and got ice-cream at DQ.  While there I met the teacher’s friend who teaches Latin dance.  It was funny getting to talk about ballroom dance once again.  I even loosened up enough to dance some foxtrot.  Oh, how I miss dance.  Maybe I should find a way to take a dance class this winter semester…  We will just have to see.

 

Well, that was my week.  A really good week overall.  I hope all of you had even better Christmas then me.  I hope you are enjoying this wonderful and special time with family.  Trust me, cherish it, it is wonderful!