Christmas Eve

We were invited to go to a primary (elementary) school on Christmas eve. We did not have any classes that morning so it was a good time. We were met at the school by a 6th grade boy that spoke excellent English. He lived in the U.S. for a year. We were also greeted by this large red banner.

We went upstairs to a large room and were met by three classes of 6th graders. We were the guests of honor for a Christmas party.

We were greeted at the front of the room. One of the teachers asked each of us our name and then the students greeted us. She had trouble pronouncing Hallie's name.
Teacher: What is your name?
Hallie: Hallie
Teacher: OK Harry. This is Harry, lets all say hello to Harry.
All students: Hello Harry!
This did not sit well with Liam, but Hallie just laughed.

We were treated to a couple of performances by some students. One boy played the piano--he was amazing! and one girl played a traditional Chinese instrument. Then the kids showered us with gifts for Christmas. We ended up with a large shopping bag with many cards and small trinkets. The school even gave us a very large scroll with Chinese calligraphy on it.

Even Santa was there!


We were asked a bunch of questions in English. Our favorite question was when one of the students asked Jon what his favorite book was. Hmmm....What is your favorite book? Ours is a (or The) Good Book.

Do you notice that all of these girls have a red scarf on? Most Chinese students wear these. They are " Young Pioneers". I am not exactly sure what all that means but it is basically the student version of the communist party. Well, not exactly. It is more like a communist version of the "model citizen club". The purpose is to teach them communist ideals. We were all given a red scarf to wear that day too. It was pretty cool.

After the party upstairs we went downstairs. Hallie visited several classrooms along the way.

What is a party without making Jaozi (Chinese dumplings)?

The girl in the red coat became Hallie's friend. What is really cool is that a few days later we ran into this girl and her mother at a McDonald's in another part of town. We talked with her a little and smiled and waved at her mom. We wished we could have communicated more with them, but we do know that we can run into people all over town. Even though we never thought we would see any those kids again, we did. Who knows what could come from opportunities like this?