Letter to a Taiwanese Friend

Dear P,

Life is getting on very well, but my days of lazing about at room temperature eating potstickers are over. I am now concentrating on editing Yang in Disguise while the heat in our house seems to drop. I have a cold, although it's getting better. Weekends are hardly breaks, and--well, probably enough complaining. After all you are busy in school with homework and tests. What do you do on weekends? Adrianna has her violin, I do last-minute Chinese homework, we both do Chinese class, and sometimes go biking. (Saturday). Sundays are sleep-in days of boredom. The most exciting thing on Sunday is Sixty Minutes, the TV program. Speaking of TV we watched the Oscars just now. Did you watch the Oscars? The "pre-Oscar" time is extremely boring. They claim the Oscars begin at four, but that's just when everybody's getting seated and obnoxious reporters interview rushing nominees. They drone on and on about spectacular gowns. A typical conversation between the reporters would be--"And the new trend with jewels on so-and-so and bare shoulders, so-and-so's dress is Calvin Klein, so-and-so is taking a note from so-and-so and wearing diamonds, so-and-so's dress is Versace with some great beads, so-and-so is wearing..." And it goes on in that vein for some time. My mom wanted me to watch it anyways. Watching the actual awards was alright, though. Some of the commercials were quite good. Weather has taken a rather nasty turn. It is quite rainy, foggy, and windy. What are you doing in Taiwan? What is your everyday life like? Is school harder, easier, or about the same? What are you studying right now? How did you like the Taiwanese book? Also, forgot to ask you. What did you do for Christmas? Did you celebrate it? What did you do for New Year's? (Chinese or otherwise.) I attatched a photo of our aunts and uncles on Christmas Day. I hope you'll be able to see it. I took the picture with the mini Lumix digital camera I recieved from my mom as a present. I also recieved a Santa hat, a lot of candy canes, a fifty dollar Barnes and Noble gift card, and a porcelain kind of vase shaped-thing for holding pencils, pens, and erasers. It was a pretty great Christmas. We ate a buffet breakfast in Todai, Redmond Town Center. By the way, we made bedding for "The Ontario Club" (also known as the "DAM Club"). My room is covered in soft bedding. So is Adrianna's. I said hi to K for you. Oh, by the way--guess what? We didn't get any homework for the weekend!!!

Please reply soon!

Love,
Dory

Eating at Todai (Redmond Town Center), Christmas Day 2006

This Christmas we went to Todai, a resturant at Redmond Town Center, to eat. My mother said things like "It doesn't open until 11:30, what's the big deal?" while we looked at each other and thought in unison, "We're bound to be late". My dad's birthday was on Christmas day and he got the free birthday deal.

To start from the beginning of my Christmas Day. My sister, Adrianna, woke me up at eight thirty or so, shaking me from my strange but interesting dream about being in jail in outer space with a spoiled brat. I was quite groggy and wanted nothing more but to go back to sleep. I was cold, as my covers were falling off, and I was grumpy--I hadn't slept very well.

I didn't want to bother to get dressed, as I assumed I would be going back to sleep, and scurried downstairs (doing our best to make sure the stairs didn't creak, without success) with my sister. I insisted on staying in our classroom under the heater (which was located on the ceiling), warming up my freezing toes, while my sister fetched our presents.

I recieved a Santa hat from my fifteen-year-old cousin, a card and five dollars from Adrianna (I gave her ten), and a shirt, also from Adrianna, which I had worn before anyway. But all the presents were insignificant in the face of the present my mom gave me--a digital camera! With this productive present I was to snap picture after picture and blog about them, every day.

Right now I am in bed under my lumpy, bulky covers at 11:17 p.m. The Winter Solstice (or whatever it's called) is said to be the shortest day of the year, or something, but Christmas Day seems like the shortest day. Sometimes I wish it were like the old days with weeks of festivities. Remember the song "Nine Days of Christmas"? (Maybe it was six days, I forget).

Our Christmas tree looks like a gnarled old man
With a wrinkled old body and wrinkled old hands
With striped candy canes.
Some presents are big, some presents are small
Some are hand-made and some are from the mall
Some cost four dollars to buy, others cost twenty-three.
But my family's love is the best present for me.

The Christmas Time

THE CHRISTMAS TIME!!!
What Santa's Ho Ho Ho Means To A Lot
Of People. Partially written, and assembled
By Adora Svitak.

FOOD
Written by Adora Svitak
Thanksgiving is sometimes thought to be the more "foody" holiday, but it varies. Christmas can be quite a "foody" time as well. After all, if you're having a large Christmas with almost all your relatives coming to your house, you'd like 1), your house to be presentably clean, 2), your kids to be presentably well-behaved, and for kids, your parents to be presentably well-behaved (or bad-behaved), and 3), you'd like to have enough for everyone to eat. TV talk show hosts blather on and on about "how to keep thin for the holidays". In my opinion, if it's a once-or-twice in a year thing, it's fine to eat as much as you want. Especially of dessert.

THE CHRISTMAS TIME!!!
What Santa's Ho Ho Ho Means to a Lot of People.
Assembled and partially written by Adora Svitak.

THE TREE
Written by Adora Svitak
The majority of Christmas-celebrating citizens in the US get Christmas trees, dig up those dusty Christmas lights from the basement, and hang kind, grandmotherly-looking ornaments on their tree. Some people may have small trees that fit in tiny pots and can barely be seen from the window, while others have brobdingnagian show-off trees that reach from the floor to the ceiling. I love having a tree around the house and the wonderful smell, and I love the excitement of putting up lights and ornaments and putting presents under the tree, but I am very worried about two things--the mess to clean up and the effect on the environment. When your tree starts drying up, the pine needles fall to the floor and it's quite bothersome to pick them out. And for the environment debate, I'd like to point out if almost every family who celebrates Christmas gets a tree, every year, and there are thousands of families who do this, then it seems quite dangerous. I have struck a deal with my mom that we will get a Christmas tree this year, because we haven't for about...two, three years, but we will only get it every other two years. How's that for a plan?

BUYING PRESENTS
Written By Joyce Svitak
I don't have the statistics to back up my claim, but I have observed that more and more products produced during Christmas time are solely for the purpose for people to buy them as presents. Most people won't buy such products for themselves, but they can always find somebody else who may enjoy them, or they find that the products present well and impress lots of people. When products are given out as presents, the utilitarian characteristics are not as important, the statement such presents can make is more important. If you browse Costco or any other retail stores, you will find endless items that make impressive presentations when you give them as gifts, but you find little practical use.Buying and giving presents in today's world has expanded its meaning, or has it? We give presents to show our love and to fulfill our obligations, to show our respect, to express our gratitude, to make sure that we are following tradition, to avoid feeling embarrassed in case presents are given to us, but we don’t have anything to give back; to connect with people so we won’t be forgotten.The problem here is most of us already have too many material goods, personally, I’d rather buy my own presents if I really needed something. I’d rather people who spend their time shopping for me to spend time for themselves. Time is more precious than any material goods anybody can get for me. Show your love with a focused and sincere ear; show your respect with a promise you made; show your desire to connect with thoughtful words; you don’t have to do things because of tradition or expectations.

Go to http://www.wonderofthegreatminds.blogspot.com for more of Joyce Svitak's great articles.

To Be Continued In The Next Issue of:
THE CHRISTMAS TIME!!!