Thanksgiving Edition

Thanks to Son#1 for Photoshopping this for me.  No, we did not stand in downtown Seoul wearing Pilgrim Hats.

As most of my American readers will be aware, Thanksgiving is bearing down on us rapidly, and we Yanks in Korea are not immune, although the nice thing is that we're not of course we all really miss engaging in hand-to-hand combat in the grocery store aisles over the last can of jellied cranberry sauce or bag of stuffing mix like our friends and family back home.   This is because very few people in Korea are heavily invested in a uniquely American festival of thanksgiving and general remembrance of the survival of (at least some of) the passengers of the Mayflower, which Americans celebrate by watching parades on television, eating far too much food, and falling asleep while watching college football.  In some homes, activities also include tactical planning for the next morning on 'Black Friday,'(also a holiday in America) when many merchants offer excellent sale prices and frighteningly early opening hours to lure in Christmas shoppers. While this is not one of my family's traditions, I do have a number of friends who consider it all part of the joy of the Season to start off their Christmas shopping standing in a line outside of Best Buy at 3am in order to be one of the lucky ones to get at the incredible deal on This Year's Hot Gift Item ("Only 100 per store! No rain checks!)  I know people who map out their shopping strategy with the same attention to detail and timing that Eisenhower used in planning the landing at Normandy.  Of course, now and then the crowd gets a bit too enthusiastic about all those discounted plasma-screen TVs and there's an unfortunate trampling, but that's all part of the fun, I suppose. Those of you who know me personally will of course realize that this combination of a) rising before dawn b) shopping and c) crowds; makes Black Friday my idea of a personal Hell, which is why I always stay home that day and put up my Christmas decorations while taking frequent breaks for cold turkey sandwiches.

 Thanksgiving is also traditionally the time for reunions with rarely-seen family members, which can be either pleasant or awkward, depending on the ages, political leanings and general life philosophies of the parties in question as well as the amount of wine being drunk.  It is also the time that more eccentric and/or dysfunctional family members tend to strut their stuff;  it's almost part of the national experience to dread  anticipate spending the holiday with Uncle Herb, who is guaranteed to either drink too much, initiate a heated political debate, or insist on telling cousin Sue (who is there with her partner, Eileen) why she's not having any luck in catching a husband.

Just another frighteningly insightful observation from some e-cards

While American Thanksgiving is more or less a harvest festival, it does, of course, have its own particular spin that makes it a bit different from such festivals in other countries.  In the US, Thanksgiving includes not only typical harvest-y symbols, such as cornucopias, sheaves of wheat, corn, and the like, but also the ubiquitous turkey, pilgrims, and native Americans.

  It is worth noting here for my non-American readers that the word 'pilgrim' for Americans almost always conjures up the vision of a 17th-century Puritan, since the context in which most American children learn about pilgrims is that of the English Separatists, who - having been more or less driven out of England and Holland for their strict religious beliefs, sober mien, and lack of shiny buttons - made a pilgrimage to the New World in 1620 in order to worship freely, landing in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts.  After an initially horrific winter, the pilgrims - helped and taught by the native Americans - managed to establish a thriving colony and produce a  bounteous harvest, the celebration of which was shared with the native Americans and (years later) referred to as 'The First Thanksgiving.'  What this means for us today is that all American children will, at some time in their lives, come home from school in November wearing a construction-paper pilgrim's hat or native American headdress, as well as a turkey whose feathers are created by tracing their hands. This early training results later on in American children struggling to absorb the more general concept of a 'pilgrim' as 'traveler' or 'one who makes a religious pilgrimage,' so deeply ingrained is the concept of a pilgrim as someone who looks like this:

English Pilgrim to the New World

This, naturally, results in a certain amount of confusion when these same children learn in later years that many modern Muslims make pilgrimages to Mecca, or that the characters in The Canterbury Tales were making a pilgrimage.  Believe me when I tell you that - as a former middle and high school teacher - I speak from experience, and that American children tend to be naturally resistant to reorganizing their concept of the word 'pilgrim.'

Muslim pilgrims in Mecca.

Of course, being in Korea at Thanksgiving time has been interesting, since the rest of the world at large is not overly concerned with it. My FaceBook feed is full of status updates involving turkeys and baking and housecleaning and travel (Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year in the US, hands down); here in Korea - unless you are on the US Army base -the only indication that Thanksgiving is approaching is the availability of turkeys at Costco and a number of hotels and restaurants that cater to Americans providing Thanksgiving dinners and buffets.  While we at the Asia Vu house are making preparations for a weekend of celebrating, and some of our friends have already flown back to the US to join the ongoing national frenzy, the rest of Seoul is going about its business without a care in the world.  I was  making lunch plans with a German friend a few days ago and told her that the 24th was out as we had an American holiday, Thanksgiving.  "Ah," she responded, "I have heard of this, I think."

MrLogical's company will be open for business as usual on Thanksgiving, although  the company will also be providing a Thanksgiving meal for all of its local employees on Friday evening after work, which we'll be attending.  We'll also be attending a potluck Thanksgiving at the home of friends, so we won't be lacking for Thanksgiving celebration, even if it won't be just like home.  We won't have football games or parades;  Uncle Herb won't be anywhere in sight; the pumpkin pie may not taste just like Grandma's, and there will likely be at least one kind of kimchi at the Thanksgiving buffet.   But we'll be giving thanks anyway.  Giving thanks for the opportunity to live in another country and meet new people who have become as close as family in a short time, as is the way in the expat community;  to travel, to learn, and to grow.  And when we get back home and do have a 'real' Thanksgiving again, I know we'll appreciate it all the more, because we'll know how precious it really is.

Happy Thanksgiving.