Happy Boxing Day to All!

What is Boxing Day, you ask?

Overcome by my own shame at not knowing the meaning of one my homeland's holidays, I decided to do what I do best and research the historical meaning behind that Canadian holiday known as "Boxing Day".

For those of you who are utterly in the dark, Boxing Day takes place December 26th, the day after Christmas. It is celebrated in Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and all those other "Commonwealth" countries. I guess when the US severed all ties with Britain after the revolution they kept Christmas but threw Boxing Day out. Wise choice.

As many a young child tend to do, I believed my mother's words when she told me that Boxing Day was simply the day everyone throws all their Christmas trash (including all the boxes containing those toys that "Santa" brought you) out to the curb. Logically it made sense. In the grand manner of all holidays, however, there are indeed deeper historical roots. Read on if you desire to be enlightened about this peculiar holiday.

Boxing Day most likely began in England sometime during the Middle Ages. There is, however, more than one explanation as to how it came about:

1. On Christmas Day, all the servants were required to slave away as usual and feed the Master and his family. Dec. 26th therefore was their day off. As the servants prepared to visit their families, the Master would "box up" all the leftover food and send it off with his servants so they could enjoy a belated Christmas dinner with their families.

2. The day after Christmas, when employees returned to work, they brought boxes along with them into which their employers would place gifts, usually coins (the equivalent of the modern-day Christmas bonus).

3. December 26th was traditionally the day the Church donation box was opened and the alms distributed to the needy.

4. On Boxing Day, people would capture the Wren, known as the king of birds, and place him in a box. He would then be introduced to each household in the village where people would ask for his blessing in ensuring a successful year.

So there you have it my friends. The reasons for that strange calendrical event called Boxing Day, each and every one as mundane as the reason my mother originally offered to me. Sorry to burst your bubble - believe me when I say that as the Canadian celebrating this holiday, I was disappointed when my research didn't reveal some swash-buckling, semi-legendary story with which I could brighten your lives.

But hey, knowledge is knowledge, however trivial, right?

So the next time you're at some Christmas cocktail party and some ignoramus inquires as to why there is a day called "Boxing Day", you can put on your best "Well, historically speaking. . ." face and prepare to watch their eyes glaze over as you enlighten them with the meaning of this humble little day.

And if you think we Canadians celebrate Boxing Day by asking some bird in a box to grant us a successful harvest, well then let me just remind you with one simple word of the modern meaning of December 26th:

SHOPPING!

Wikipedia reports:"Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over $1,000,000(CAN) on one single boxing day." It is the only day of the year where stores resemble posh nightclubs with strings of line-ups outside and doormen letting people in one at a time. People will line up for hours to hit the Christmas sales, spend all their Christmas money, or return those ugly Christmas sweaters that their mother gave them. In fact, stores now extend Boxing Day into "Boxing Week" to maximize their profits.

Sound familiar my American friends? I think in the modern sense of things, it would be safe to say that we ALL celebrate Boxing Day, whether it's marked on our calendars or not. Unless you live in a country like China of course. In that case, just head to Dongmen, where every day is December 26th in my book.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Happy Boxing Day to all.

Source: Anonymouse and Wikipedia)

Merry Christmas to All, Wherever You May Be

Merry Christmas to all! The Shenzhen Education Bureau threw all of us foreign teachers a huge party at the Shenzhen Silver Lake Resort, where we stayed when we first arrived in Shenzhen at the end of August. It was a Western holiday celebrated in the grand Chinese fashion - a banquet complete with toastings every 30 seconds, a talent show and karaoke.

Took a little bit of Canada back to China with me - enjoying a glass of Icewine from the Niagara Peninsula. It was a pleasure to share it with everyone.
The ever-talented Matt B. at guitar.
Edward was wearing what appeared to be a cross between Hugh Heffner and Santa Claus. This is the version the kids never learn about.
The way we should be on Christmas, merry and bright :D

Vieve putting her new kung fu outfit to good use.

5 Days in the Western World

Suddenly found myself on a plane last Wednesday, leaving Hong Kong for Toronto. I decided about two days beforehand to fly home for my brother's wedding. Within 15 hours I was back in the land of maple syrup, Tim Horton's coffee and Hockey Night. Talk about culture shock! My 4 1/2 days back in my homeland were filled up family celebrations, from my brother's marriage to the birth of Ethan, my other brother's new son (I have gained a nephew and a sister-in-law!!), to my aunt's and cousin's arrival from Scotland (the OTHER Motherland), to the return of yours truly. I'm so happy I was home to share in all of these things, if only for a very short while. Then I hopped on another 15-hour flight to Hong Kong and was back to teaching in Shenzhen the very next day. I'm exhausted but elated. It all happened so fast that I don't even know how to reconcile everything.

The first question out of everyone's mouth over here is how did I manage to come back to China?? As you probably can tell, we are missing our homelands and growing weary of, well, the realities of life in China. Maybe some of us are sick of Chinese food - as many varieties of it as there are, certain prevailing tendencies like using copious amounts of oil or fatty cuts with more bone than meat present or disturbing amounts of MSG can grow tiresome. Perhaps it's the differences in cultural mentality, like the penchant for spitting - LOUDLY - everywhere, even indoors at times, or their free-for-all methods of driving. It could be the level of theft in this city of which many of us have, unfortunately, been victims (me from the very school at which I teach). Perhaps we're homesick. Or maybe some of us are just sick of teaching. The true reason most likely rests on all of these things to some extent, and possibly others.

Of course when we first headed into this program most of us understood that it would not be easy. One of my most basic reasons for choosing to travel and live and work abroad in a country as foreign as China is the fact that it is challenging, on many levels. I wanted to set aside all the comfortable and familiar ways of life I lead at home and venture into places unfamiliar and unrefined, places which remind you that the world isn't how it is at home, nor how you see it in a textbook or on TV or hear other people talk about it. You have to travel to understand this. Likewise, these places remind you that sometimes you're not as open-minded or as worldly as you once thought you were. And so you start to realize that you have things to work on, better questions to ask and ultimately more places to go. And you are reminded, everyday, that it is not supposed to be easy, whether you're trying to overcome a sometimes massively-steep language barrier simply so you can find your way to the bathroom or trying to organize a life you still technically lead back in your homeland whilst being almost 8000 miles away. Travel is, in large part, about hardship - about facing it and learning from it, shaking yourself out of complacency and getting the job done, and then looking back over all you've seen and felt and learned and saying, "man, that was fun." Travel is, as Paul Theroux so aptly puts it, "only glamorous in retrospect."

I could go on and on but I'll just end with George Santayana who says it better and more concisely than I just did:

"There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humour."

For the Love of Street Food

Street food is an integral part of Chinese culture and one of my favourite "everyday" activities to witness. There's nothing like hunkering down on miniature stools at an equally miniature table at 2 am watching the vendor, squatting in front of a grill (the Chinese are masters at squatting for hours on end), skillfully doing up a couple dozen mutton skewers, an egglpant or two, some green beans, and an oyster to fill your hungry stomach. Or perhaps watching the man at the wok, maneuvering it back and forth and tossing a generous serving of rice noodles, egg, chicken and veggies in the air which you paid the equivalent of a couple quarters to eat. Sometimes they're roasting sweet potatoes or chestnuts or chopping up fresh pineapple and melon. It's very colourful and amusing to watch, and the vendors are typically friendly and of course eager for business - meaning some bartering can be done (but it's all super cheap compared to the restaurants). My favourite? Stir-fried rice noodles!

The oddest thing happened the last time my friends and I were gobbling down some street fare. One of the many beggars came up to us shaking a container at us, mumbling something unintelligible, to which we replied "meiyou" (don't have). They are a persistent bunch so he hung around, but when we still refused to give him anything, he then (quite calmly) resorted to lifting my almost-finished beer off of the table and chugging the rest of it. I, too bewildered and amused to say anything, just watched. I was beginning to think, hey if this is what he wanted, sure, why not? when instead of swallowing the beer he spit it out at our feet, and then proceeded to spit quite loudly on top of it. OK, I get it now - damn rich foreigners wouldn't spare me a kuai. We left, still amused, but feeling slightly flattened by the experience. Shenzhen has its share of beggars in this city, along with thieves. And when they see foreigners I'm sure many of them automatically think "dumb and has money. Excellent target." Just tonight two girls tried to con me into buying them McDonalds. Well maybe they outright asked me but it was hard to understand in Chinese. At first it just seemed as though they were inviting me to eat with them. Luckily I hate McDonalds and more importantly I had the sense to inquire whether they had any money and they shook their heads. The lightbulb went on and I decided to call it a night and walk in the other direction.

Just a few of the run-ins with the locals! Paul Theroux words ring clear in my mind: "We all know that a vast amount of travel is accumulated nuisance." At times it's no fun being "Other". But it sure is amusing.

Of course this is the negative side. Believe me, I have seen the opposite end of the spectrum as well, and have met some people who will bend over backwards to help you out and who are just genuinely curious about you and want to be your friend. And in a country where you barely speak the language and just can't make sense of those Chinese characters and don't always know which direction you're going in, these people are certainly nice to find :).