This year’s Thanksgiving was unlike any before.  To begin, I had class ON Thanksgiving.  Not only class but an exam, essay, and presentation.  I had a very light lunch to ensure that I would have enough room for the feast that the Alliance Program was preparing for us. 

They rented out a whole restaurant because we had such a large group.  All 16 of us students came, plus our language partners, plus our program directors, Chinese professors, and elective professors.  We all crowded into the restaurant to get out of the Beijing cold to find that we were in Africa!

The restaurant was over flowing with authentic Africa art. Many Chinese and African businessman come to this restaurant in Beijing to make business deals because of the nice atmosphere.

But back to Thanksgiving!  All of us were very excited to eat our Thanksgiving meal.  We had to explain to our language partners what Thanksgiving was and why we celebrate it.

This is my new language partner Li Han.  She is a graduate student at BLCU teaching undergrads Chinese.  She is one of the nicest people I’ve met on the trip.  She is very helpful and was so excited to eat her first Thanksgiving meal.

I jumped in line first and helped Li Han grab all the necessary foods.  Turkey, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, broccoli, rolls, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, and of course apple pie!

My before.

My after.

Everyone had a little bit of everything.  The food was perfect.  Although I can’t celebrate Thanksgiving at home this year, at least it still tasted like home.  Except the stuffing, my Grandmom makes WAY better stuffing!

As the night was coming to an end, my classmate Drew got an awful idea.  A wonderful, awful idea.  He decided to show all the Chinese professors the traditional American Thanksgiving dance!  But he didn’t just show it to them- he made them “learn” it too.  It was a lot of fun!  We kept telling them it was 很地道 (hen didao) or really authentic, genuine.  The professors seemed to enjoy the dance too.  It was only when we said our good-byes that they found out.  Oops! Maybe next year it will become a thing!