Merry Christmas!

One of my students asked me this week whether I was sad not to be home for Christmas. My answer was a little, but only a little because instead I was celebrating with them. And it really was a nice day. I couldn't really explain Christmas to them, not wanting to do or say anything even slightly religious, but we decorated Christmas tree and snowman posters, ate candy, and said Merry Christmas over and over again and I think they got the right warm-fuzzy feeling.

Many of my students gave me presents--a sweet but odd experience. In addition to the elaborately wrapped apples I was given rolls of decorative cellophane, a fluffy pom-pom, two plastic crystals, many notes, and more.

My table filled with gifts. 

The most elaborate: a snowglobe music box. What does it play? Fur Elise, which is our start-of-class bell and our ringtone
in this region (in other words, a sweet gift, but I never actually want to hear it play).

So much cellophane!

My favorite note. It says "wishing you a merry Christmas, daily smiles, and smooth work' and then "please translate into
English" with the box to the top-left set aside for my translation (also, translate--which includes a pretty complicated
character--is miswritten as "antonymous", also meaning antisense as used in genetics).

Puff ball, crystals, and flowers.

A crying peanut...or carrot? I have no idea...

Sadly, a student spilled water on my keyboard and it is broken...only the middle line types at all and produces: asdfg5h6jkl. I've typed this entirely with the onscreen keyboard. And so, as much as I love you all, I won't be posting again until I'm back in the States. Luckily, this will be very soon! I'm leaving my town next weekend and will be arriving in Maryland a couple of days, three buses, and three airplanes later. Looking forward to being home and seeing some of you soon!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas!

"We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, And a Happy New Year!"

I've been teaching this much of We Wish You A Merry Christmas to my students in music class. It's been a bit of a struggle, but they're starting to get it. So then I had them listen to a couple versions. The first was by my friend Kemi Adegoroye, the second by Tenebrae, and the third by Enya. I chose these three mostly because they are very different. I was surprised to find that the overwhelming majority liked Enya best. They seemed to find it peaceful. I thought it was boring.

The Winter Solstice and Christmas Eve Apples

This week is not only Christmas, but also the winter solstice and Christmas Eve. Of course, you say, if it's Christmas it's Christmas Eve as well. But I mention it because people don't seem to do much here for Christmas itself, but they give elaborately wrapped apples for Christmas Eve. Why? It's a pun on the word for Christmas Eve: 平安夜 Píng ān Yè. This literally means silent or peaceful night, but the word for apple is 苹果 píngguǒ, so they give people apples. A local teacher explained to me that this didn't used to be a tradition here, it's only started in the last two or three years. When I asked how it spread she said via television and the internet. It started in the big cities and now everyone else does it too.

Why are they so elaborately wrapped? My only explanation is that this is China and they like things like that. It's similar for lunar festivals where elaborately wrapped moon cakes are sold for many times the simple (and yummy) ones.

A wrapped apple.

A whole table of wrapped apples on the street in front of a fruit stand.

Apparently apples of all sorts are appropriate gifts: one student gave me this beautiful glass apple!

Earlier this week it was also the winter solstice. Usually it occurs to me sometime that it is the winter solstice and I think oh yay, the days will start getting longer again, and then I move on with my day as if it were any other. But my Chinese cofellows decided to celebrate the solstice, so I happily joined in. Apparently there are different traditions in the north and south of China for the winter solstice. In the north they eat dumplings and in the south they eat tangyuan (boiled balls of sweet gooey rice flour). So, since one of my cofellows is from the north and one is from the south, we ate both!