Thankgsiving, Holiday Spirit, and Contests

Hello everyone! This week was more peaceful than the last, but definitely more eventful (if that makes sense).

Last week was the International Students Speech Contest, where one student from all the classes for Chinese as a second language compete by performing four minute long speeches. Because there are so man classes, the contest is divided into five days with about ten or so classes competing against each other, and because the contest takes place in the afternoon, all afternoon classes were cancelled last week (although that didn’t really affect me in the long run because I only have two days where I have afternoon classes, the rest are in the morning).

So our class, class 12, was competing against classes 11, and 13-18 I believe, and my best friend won second place! Her name is Janie, and she’s a brilliant student, so I’m not surprised. Our teacher was though. Apparently most winners are from the more advanced classes, seeing as they have more experience, their levels are higher, etc., but Janie’s topic also impressed the judges a lot too. Our kouyu teacher was so happy that she had our entire kouyu class go out to a restaurant together. It was a lot of fun! I think my kouyu teacher is my favorite teacher here. Not just because we went out to dinner, but because she’s a really good teacher and an interesting person. She’s really helpful when we have trouble understanding new material, and she doesn’t put up with nonsense, which is always a good trait in my book.

For the rest of the week I tried catching up on some of the material I missed last week, due to being sick during the midterm exam, and relaxing after the stressful period of exams.

So yesterday I went to a Christmas market with some of my German friends, which was a lot of fun. It was at the German embassy, out in a courtyard and partially within the main building. There were a ton of people, but the line to get in was moving pretty fast, and because we got there early, we got to go in fairly quickly. Since there wasn’t that much room, people were being let in based on how many people left every few minutes/hours. It was good we got there before they opened.

From what my friends told me the embassy definitely tried to make this event as authentic as possible. The stands apparently looked very much like those that were in the Christmas markets in Germany, the food tasted very authentic (from what I could tell, as I’ve only been to Germany once, and my mom’s side of the family is German so I have some experience in this department), and the music was like that played around Christmas time in Germany.

Here’s some pictures:

(My friends Jule and Teresa with some mulled wine, a must at a Christmas market)

(My delicious bratwurst and black forest chocolate cherry cake)

(A choir singing German Christmas carols) 

(Santa came to give presents to little children, although he looks a bit skinny to me...)

(Another one of my German friends. I believe her name is Elizabeth, but I'm sorry to say I can't remember for sure)

(The food here was fantastic! I'm eating some sort of ham/liverwurst sandwich, which was extremely filling and hearty.)

All in all, it was a very fun event.

I have to say that I really needed something like this. Last Thursday was Thanksgiving at home, and while I had planned to go out with a few people to get Peking duck, those plans fell through. As such, on Thanksgiving, I went out with my German friends to a bakery and had some very yummy pastries.

But going to the Christmas market on Saturday really made me happy. Thanksgiving is a time to be around friends and family, and since I couldn’t celebrate it with my folks back home, I was very happy to be able to do something special with my friends here. I am very grateful to have them here, and to have a loving family waiting for me at home.

Something that I have been noticing recently is that I have a lot of German friends. I’m very tempted to start learning German in addition to Chinese. That would be very beneficial considering I already speak English, Chinese, and a little Spanish. If I could improve my Spanish and learn German, I could become able to speak four languages.

Well, we’ll see what happens.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone back home, and best wishes to everyone everywhere else in the world!