Christmas in China

Christmas is not a holiday traditionally celebrated in China. However, my employer decided long ago that Christmas is really important to foreigners and we must get the day off. It’s in our contacts.

Unfortunately, my training center doesn’t agree. They are just giving us the option to not work. Most people have decided to work and get the extra pay. It’s not like we can go anywhere; there’s another Covid outbreak.

But, we do get to celebrate the holidays.

Classroom Decorations

I didn’t get to decorate my classroom for Christmas. By the time I came to work, my Chinese teacher was almost finished. And it looks amazing! If slightly distracting.

Most of the other foreign teachers got to enjoy making their classrooms festive. I, instead, got to keep working on my Christmas Jeopardy. It’s Rudolph-themed! Obviously, I’m making the kids learn the song so they can sing it. It’s one of the questions. I get to play it in 5 of my classes Christmas weekend.

The other class is little kids. They are going to do some sort of coloring activity or something. I’m not entirely sure yet.

Thank you Dinner

In the spirit of the holiday, the foreigners decided it would be nice to take out our Chinese teachers to dinner to say ‘thank you’ for all they do for us. I know I couldn’t even dream of running my classroom by myself. I wouldn’t even remember what I was supposed to teach without the schedule my Chinese teacher makes for me every week.

We did have to rope one of the Chinese teachers in to help us find a venue as, well, we don’t speak Chinese and making reservations and asking questions of the locals is well beyond our abilities. But, she was very helpful and we got our special dinner.

We’re going to a local fancy hotel that has a big fancy buffet. All you can eat and drink, yum! Unfortunately for me and some of the other foreigners, there’s a lot of seafood in the pictures of the food (seafood is gross!). Hopefully, they have other things to eat as well.

One of my coworkers brought up the idea of doing a white elephant gift exchange. I think this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of that mystery birthday gift I got from my employer at their holiday party. I also got something else to go with it – a toy where you smash a rock and get a thing. The one I got is a little animal head statue. I wanted the dinosaur one, but the store was all out.

Dinner

The hotel was very nicely decorated for the holiday. Trees and fake presents everywhere. It looked like back home. Even the robot gondoliere was dressed as Santa!

The buffet was everything I feared it was going to be. It was mostly seafood. The rest was weird Chinese dishes that I’m scared of or fruit, dessert, and bread. I’m sure you could guess what I ate.

I will say that the baby baguettes they had were amazing! They tasted exactly like good bread you get at some restaurants while waiting for your food. I would go back for that bread alone. It was that delicious.

They also had some good garlic bread, but I’m not going to write an ode to it, too, as it was just good. Now, if it were slightly warm, then it would be worthy of praise.

The important part of the night, however, was thanking our Chinese teachers and making sure they enjoyed themselves. They were mostly overjoyed. They loved the food and had an amazing time.

I was also impressed with the number of bottles of wine our group was able to polish off. Half the group doesn’t drink!

White Elephant

Some of my coworkers really, really wanted to do a gift exchange of some sort. There was talk of Secret Santa with the foreigners picking a Chinese to give a gift for and vice versa. It was quickly vetoed for the easier White Elephant.

I wasn’t going to participate. Until, at almost the last minute, I realized that it would be a wonderful opportunity to get rid of that horrible birthday gift that I got from my employer.

I thought it only polite to get something else to go with it. As a ‘sorry you got mystery spoons’ gift. I was just praying that I wouldn’t be shamed for having the worst gift. But, I wanted those spoons gone more.

After a quick explanation on how to play White Elephant, which, I learned I had been doing wrong all along, the game began. Someone had enough forethought to bring numbers to draw from a hat. I was in the middle.

My gift was the first one chosen!

There was some explanation needed as to what part of it was, but the spoons were easily understood. I was sitting next to two of the three people who would recognize the gift’s origin. We had a good laugh about them.

The game quickly moved on. Someone else decided he wanted the spoons and stole the gift. For the rest of the game, he loudly and increasingly drunkenly shouted out for no one to take his spoons.

It quickly became the entertainment of the evening. People were soon rolling around laughing at each of his drunken bellows.

Everyone enjoyed the game. Even if some gifts needed a bit of clarification. I picked up a heavy box and had no idea as to what the thing was. I eventually discovered a bit of English identifying it as face masks (yay girly skincare!).

Unfortunately, they were stolen from me by a guy with half a face! He has a mustache and beard.

My next gift was something I had to open to figure out what they were. It was a set of three little reed diffusers. My apartment is going to smell so good! I may never want to leave.

At the end, when everyone had their gift, the first person who picked a gift got to steal someone’s gift, if they wanted, did. She stole the spoons back!

I couldn’t believe that someone actually wanted those spoons!

Christmas Day Classes

For Christmas, most of my classes are having a normal grammar class and then playing a Christmas-themed game of Jeopardy.

I made them all little study sheets so they’d know, or at least be able to look up the answer to the Christmas questions. I did also add some normal questions – some grammar and some ‘bad sentences’ (basically it’s a sentence like those that they often write and they have to fix it. The students hate them, but they are so good for them.).

Around break time, the kids all have to go next door to the library and sing Jingle Bells with a couple other classes. My kids also get a set of bells to ring and a decorated Santa hat.

It is a nightmare trying to get them all organized and singing a Christmas carol they didn’t bother to learn. We gave them the lyrics and a video of the song and everything!

Then, I had to give them all little stockings with some candy and a snap bracelet. Before we all had to go back, line up nicely, and take pictures.

But once that little slice of hell was over, it was back to the class to finish the grammar, make any corrections, and play a game.

The Christmas Jeopardy was a big hit. I don’t think anyone looked at the sheet I gave them last class to study, but most of them brought it back with them (probably never bothered to take it out).

I think my favorite question so far is ‘Sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. It’s easy to tell they’ve never listened to the song and didn’t even bother to read the lyrics before.

I’m usually trying not to fall down laughing at them while they butcher my favorite carol. Definitely brightens my day!

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Here are some of the Christmas gifts I’ve gotten or given:

If you have any questions about any of the terms I’ve used, look in the glossary.