Let There Be Light: Take II

Hurray! Joyous days are here again!

Did Palestine and Isreal have a massive group hug that made all their problems seem trivial in the grand scheme of things? Sorry, no.

Did Gore announce global warming to the be the greatest April Fool's joke ever pulled? Uncomfirmed.

Did Tommy/Thomas purchase a slamming new computer that connects to the internet with little trouble? You bet your sweet ass!

This may not seem like a moment worthy of global celebration, but I can assure you it is. How many days and nights has the American public typed into their computers "www.helgeninchina.blogspot.com", only to be greeted with the same boring post as the day before? How many children lost hope? How many dreamers stopped dreaming?

No more. Without hesitation, I can definatively say: I'M BACK BABY!

Oh sweet, sweet glorius day! I might even be able to start putting more pictures up! Surely they must invent a punctuation mark that blows past the exclamation point and better captures this...this moment in time!!!!!

I hereby promise that from this point on the post will contain nothing other than pertinent information regarding my ongoings in China. Aka: Here come da good stuff.

Christmas was nice, as Christmas usually is, but it was also very strange here in China. For starters, it was the first time I was without my family, not to mention the first time without snow. As I mentioned before, one could detect signs of holiday cheer on the streets of Changsha as early as Thanksgiving. Any store that banked on the notion of being a "western import" (ie: KFC and Walmart) flooded their establishment with decorations and had each of their employees don Santa caps. A week before Christmas, my class became a Christmas party disguised as a cultural lesson. I discovered that my students love the idea that Santa Claus "sees when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake", but couldn't care less about a stupid deer with a flashlight nose. I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but once again, teaching about Christmas has helped me see the traditions in new ways. When my students laugh at the idea of hanging socks on the fireplace, it's hard not to join them.

One thing I can't joke about is the fact that a few of my students and a number of collective classes bought me gifts for the holiday. This was not something assumed, nor was it done for every other teacher. Also, these kids don't have money to spend, they just don't, so to have them buy me something is almost embarrassing, if not heartwarming. Two of my classes gave me cards that were signed by each classmate. I smiled like a baby.

There was a formal Christmas party at our school. Wait, did I say party? I meant talent show. You see, any time we hear the word "party" we know it's going to be anything but a party. On this particular occation, the party was a talent show. Since we were celebrating "our" holiday, the foreign teachers were asked/forced to take part. For these types of performances there is always a strange unity between the fact that hundreds of people will witness whatever it is that you do and the fact that they will love you no matter what, simply because you are a foreigner. Anna, Phil, and Andrew became the stars of a little one act that our boss cooked up. It had Anna and Andrew wearing Beijing Opera clothing and Phil wearing a matador costume. Andrew and Anna were lovers, but Phil (who played the role of George Bush (no joke)) had money, power, and his eyes set on Anna. In the end, Andrew (who was listed as playing George Washington) won Anna's heart by singing some Chinese songs. None of this mattered however. The simple fact was this: the foreign teachers dressed up in funny clothing, tried to speak Chinese, made references to boyfriends and girlfriends, and sang songs. The english students are probably still talking about it today. Instead of taking part in the skit, I played piano and sang a song for the little bastards! I chose the song "What a Wonderful World" because everyone in China hates everything else I play. They like nice melodies and have no time for the off-tempo jazz shit that I try to bring them. I thought it worked pretty well.

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to wrap this part up earlier. The reason Christmas was so strange was because I actually wanted to forget about it. It was never going to add up to anything in my past, so I rather would have had it come and go. I couldn't do that however. There were a million artificial reminders. Whether it was Walmart employees sporting a Santa hat, or one of my students eagerly wishing me a "Murry Chri-ssa-mas" I just couldn't let it slip by like I wanted to.

New Years was like that. All of a sudden, someone reminded me that it was New Year's Eve, we went to a club, counted down from ten, the place got a little louder than normal...BING, BANG, BOOM....hope it's better next year! In a strange way, I almost prefer that route. I'm in China. I'm loving it. I don't need America-Lite.

You friggin' know that more updates are soon to come! Put out the word. Let the people know that Tommy/Thomas is back with a vengence!

Leave me a comment for the love of everything holy!
Thomas