Thanksgiving in China

It’s 10:00 pm on the eve of Thanksgiving and I’m sitting in the teacher’s lounge of Hwa Nan Women’s College in Fuzhou, China. I take a much-needed rest on the leather couch and try to get my mind off of my throbbing fingers. I’ve spent the last hour perfecting my dad’s spicy cranberry sauce recipe on the stove for tomorrow’s feast, which entailed the seeding and dicing of several Chinese hot peppers. I’ve made the mistake many times at home of thinking I can handle hot chilies without gloves, and each time I end up regretting it. But I have an excuse today: I haven’t used a cutting board or a stove for over 3 months, so I am a little overexcited. I’ve missed my kitchen!

Fuzhou is the closest to place to home we’ve come so far on the trip. For the next month we will be staying in dorms, (though I’ll admit they’re nothing like any dorm I’ve seen in the States) eating in a cafeteria and interacting with other English-speaking students. We have access to a library (albeit limited), washing machines (!!!) and (most of) the comforts of home at the on-campus convenience store. Things are at our fingertips again! We get so spoiled at college.

The anxiety that normally accompanies my acclimation to a new home is strangely absent here. I’m so thankful to have a semi-normal routine here: go to class in a classroom, eat lunch, explore town, exercise and take a warm shower at the end of the day. As I mentioned in my Vietnam posts, I’ve come to a point on the journey at which I’ve begun to, not necessarily crave, but greatly appreciate a degree of normalcy. I’m all for adventure and trying new things, but I’m sad to admit that some of that intrigue has worn off. It gets exhausting after a while. I’m going to choose to look at this next chapter as a break from the heretofore relentless need to adapt, adjust and accommodate. I’ll take this next month to focus on myself a bit more and reflect on how I want to spend the rest of this trip. I have a feeling that by the time we leave for Hong Kong, I will feel refreshed with a renewed sense of adventure. It will certainly come in handy next semester during our 3 month stay in India.

As much as I hate to drag this post on after that poignant little conclusion, I can’t leave without telling you more about our Thanksgiving extravaganza that is currently underway! As you may have gathered, we Pacrimmers are preparing the Thanksgiving feast for ourselves and fifty guests. That’s right, FIFTY! That means there will be more than eighty diners. But that’s only the beginning of our obstacles. Aside from the guest list, our access to the classic, American thanksgiving staple ingredients is quite limited in China, as I’m sure you can imagine. No cranberries, stuffing, pie crusts, turkeys or pumpkin pie mix here. It’s been a challenge to say the least. But we have risen to meet it! Before we left the States, our cunning program directors shipped multiple packages of staple ingredients to the Chinese campus.  But despite their foresight, there were still a few holes that needed to be filled by the Chinese grocery stores. You would not believe the dedication and hard work of my peers. Let me just explain the lengths to which Jeremy and Rachael, Commander and Lieutenant of the Side Dish Committee, went in order to create the must-have green bean casserole. The simplest, most out-of-the-can dish in the history of American cooking quickly became the most labor-intensive and unexpectedly tedious on our menu.

First of all, to our surprise, there were no canned green beans to be found at the supermarket in Fuzhou. But we recovered from that one pretty easily.

Hurdle #1: No canned green beans.

Solution: Rinse, trim, slice and parboil fresh green beans. Not too difficult, but much more labor-intensive.

Next up was the cream of mushroom soup, another major Midwestern food staple, which we were hoping we could find or substitute. But we were foiled again.

Hurdle #2: No cream of mushroom soup!

Solution: Make it. From scratch. Who has ever actually taken the time to make cream of mushroom soup? Jeremy Baba has.

So by this point, seven of us have spent the better part of 4 hours doing what would have taken about 30 minutes at home. But just wait. It gets more ridiculous.

What is green bean casserole without the crunchy Funyun topping, right? Well, you’d be hard pressed to find Funyuns in China, so we decided make our own!

Hurdle #3: No fried onions.

Solution: Peel, slice, batter and pan-fry thousands of onion slices using nothing but a pair of chopsticks! Way to go Monica and Kari. They were hard at work for over 3 hours.

Just when you thought we had conquered the casserole, logistics swooped in to try to spoil the party. But we were ready with a meticulously planned baking schedule in hand.

Hurdle #4: Access to only two ovens to cook 21 pies, 13 turkeys, 6 pans of stuffing, and 6 pans of green bean casserole.

Solution: Wake up at 5:00am, immediately after the timer goes off on the Baking Committee’s final pie, and commandeer the ovens for a few short hours before the turkeys take over.

Luckily, Miss Rachael Gary, queen of the green beans, volunteered for this job. Thank you Rachael!

We had a blast staying up all night, each of us contributing a little piece of our love and creativity to the event. Even though I know I’ll miss the autumn colors, Aunt Kari’s homemade gravy, dad’s cranberries and the leftover turkey sandwiches, it will certainly be an unforgettable Thanksgiving.