You don't always get what you bargain for

For decades, China has coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, in hopes that one day one of their own citizens (while living in China) could claim it as a recipient. To China, winning the Nobel Peace Prize would ultimately prove to the world that China has indeed become a country to reckon with and has finally caught up to, if not surpassed, the Western powers. This year, China's wish was granted, although not in the form they were expecting it. What can I say? You can't always get what you bargain for.

Back in early October, it was announced that the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissent currently jailed for subversion of state power, after co-authoring Charter 08, a highly critical political manifesto on the Chinese government. Liu was also a notable figure in the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests.

To say that China wasn't thrilled upon learning Liu Xiaobo was awarded this year's Nobel Prize would be an understatement. As soon as the announcement was made, China quickly called the Norwegian ambassador to express their anger and publicly  retorted by calling the decision "blasphemy."

Additionally, the story of that the first Chinese man ever had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was shushed quiet throughout Chinese media outlets. News story concerning the prize form international news outlets, such as CNN or the BBC were also blacked out (CNN and BBC are only available in apartment complexes catered to foreigners and in nice hotels.). Many western news websites featuring stories about the award and Internet searches on "Liu Xiaobo" and "Nobel Peace Prize" were also blocked by the Great Chinese Firewall. Lastly, and perhaps the most creepily, as the news of the decision spread, the Chinese government erased the characters composing the characters of Liu Xiaobo's name out of the SMS (texting) database so that no text messages containing his name could be sent out. Those who succeeded prior to the big erased found their messages blocked and sometimes SIM cards deactivated.

Not surprisingly, this past weekend as the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony was held in Oslo, Norway, many Western news websites were blocked once again.Without using a VPN, I couldn't access CNN.com; although ironically, I could access the NY Times where the "Empty Chair" was one of the leading stories of the weekend. (Since Liu Xiaobo was obviously not allowed to attend the ceremony in Oslo and accept his award, the award was given to an "empty chair," thus all the "Empty Chair" headlines about the Nobel Peace Prize this weekend.)

Thanksgiving Misconceptions

It's definitely very indicative how of just prevalent American culture is abroad when most of the non-Americans here at BNU (and the teachers) know of Thanksgiving, which for all intensive purposes a very American holiday.* Not only do they know of the holiday Thanksgiving, many of them knew that Thanksgiving is in November and includes a turkey. However beyond that, their knowledge of Thanksgiving was limited (not that I can blame them for that). But they did have some interesting ideas about what traditions were apart of the holiday:

On Thanksgiving, everyone tells the truth.
One of my classmates asked me earlier this week if it was tradition that at Thanksgiving everyone sits at the dinner table and tells the truth. At first, I was very perplexed by her question, until I figured out that she was most likely getting this idea from a number of US television shows and movies. In many television shows and movies that feature Thanksgiving, all the family drama comes out at the dinner table while the family is all gathered together. Although family drama rearing it's ugly head is not a Thanksgiving tradition in the United States, I do suspect that perhaps for some families, it might be almost be the equivalent to a tradition.

After we gather for Thanksgiving dinner, we exchange presents.
Several people asked if we exchanged gifts after Thanksgiving dinner and each time I was asked, I said no and was slumped why they would think that presents are vital to Thanksgiving. At first, I thought maybe they were getting American Christmas and Thanksgiving traditions confused from what they see in US films and television. However, after some further questioning, they simply explained that with name of "Thanksgiving," they figured the name referred to the giving of gifts and giving thanks in return. Despite being incorrect, I thought their conclusions did make sense if you hadn't had the whole pilgrims-and-Native-Americans story drilled into your brain for most of your childhood.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tale of (American) Thanksgiving, it begins with pilgrims from England fleeing to what was then the colonies to avoid persecution. However, once they arrived in Plymouth Rock, the pilgrims had no idea how to grow food and survive in the colonies. As an act of kindness, the Native Americans living nearby at the time taught them how to grow food successfully in their new home. As the tale has it, at the end of the first harvest, all the pilgrims and Native Americans gathered together for a big feast to celebrate the harvest, thus beginning the story of Thanksgiving.

It must be noted though that Thanksgiving wasn't recognized as a national holiday officially until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln announced his Thanksgiving Proclamation, which declared the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. However, in 1941, Thanksgiving was officially moved to the third day of Thanksgiving in hopes that lengthening the Christmas season would boost the economy.

And as for the term, "Thanksgiving," it supposedly refers to the pilgrims giving thanks to the Native Americans for helping them out with their crops.

Anyways, that's enough history (or at least, fabled history), for now. Here's a picture a friend sent to me that I think perfectly sums up what I think is key to any Thanksgiving (along with family and friends)....

Eating!

*Not #1: Yes, I do know Canadians have Thanksgiving too, along with a few other places. But for this message of this post, Canadian Thanksgiving (and the others) are irrelevant. I hope I didn't offend any Canadians out there.

*Note #2: I also do know that the whole Native American-pilgrims/Native Americans-colonists relationship is not as cheery as the Thanksgiving story suggests. However, for the sake of being concise and not opening a whole other can of worms, we'll just put those facts aside.