What Americans do on the holiday

Thanksgiving in the United States

[Going Abroad Online]The fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving Day in the United States every year. In the United States is second only to Christmas, the family reunion of the major holidays. Every year at this time, all the major cities in the United States have organized Thanksgiving Day carnival parade one after another, so that people feel the festive atmosphere everywhere. The origin of Thanksgiving Day is along the lines of the earliest settlers of the American land, the English Puritans, thanked the Native American Indians for their help and the celebration came.

November 1620, 102 English Puritans to escape persecution by the Church of England, the "Mayflower" ship across the Atlantic Ocean, drifted to the United States of America, Massachusetts, the Plymouth area ashore. They arrived in the Americas in the middle of winter, due to the first time out, people and places, lack of food and clothing, hunger and cold, under the threat of disease and cold, 102 people died more than half of the Puritans. Later, with the great help of the local native Indians, they learned to hunt, fish, plant corn, etc., and the following year had a fruitful fall harvest. In order to thank God's favor and reward, in return for the assistance and care of the Indians, these Pilgrims hunted turkeys, homegrown pumpkins, corn, sweet potatoes, fruits, etc. made into a sumptuous delicacies, feast, and invited the Indians to celebrate the harvest together. This was the first Thanksgiving, as Americans would later call it.

To this day, the meaning of Thanksgiving has changed a lot. Every year before Thanksgiving, the President of the United States will have a "pardoned turkey" activities, was pardoned the lucky turkey (this year is two), can escape being slaughtered, barbecue, and finally into the human body of the five temples of the destiny, to rest in peace. Thanksgiving feast before eating, in accordance with the custom, are to give thanks to the prayer, but in addition to thank God from beginning to end, the Native American Indians have long been excluded from the scope of the American thanksgiving, and has even been forgotten in the corner of history. 1979 Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Indians, Thanksgiving Day to hunger strike action to protest against white Americans to the Indians of the ungrateful.

Nowadays, when it comes to Thanksgiving Day, the general impression is that it is a "turkey dinner", so the Chinese Americans also call Thanksgiving Day "Turkey Day".

The day before Turkey Day, I received a phone call from a high school classmate, who said he had something important to do from out of state to New York, and it just happened to be Turkey Day, and he was ready to leave New York that night to go back after the matter was resolved.

"It's not easy to come to New York, just happen to be 'Turkey Day', tomorrow your restaurant should be closed, you go back to nothing to do, why don't you stay in New York to play one more day, and by the way, watch and feel the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York. "

"The parade is the same every year, there's nothing to see. On 'Turkey Day', almost all the Chinese restaurants in the United States are closed for vacation, and people who work in foreign countries take this opportunity to come back to New York to play. Now Chinatown is already a sea of people, overcrowded, one does not pay attention to think they are in Fuzhou East Street. If we wait until tomorrow night to leave, it's not very convenient to take the bus ah whatsoever, and there will definitely be a lot of people going back to work in the outer states by then, it's too crowded."

"Then the next time you come to New York, I'll treat you to turkey as a make-up 'turkey day'."

"You might as well treat me to something else, turkey is awful, and besides, not many of us Chinese would be interested in having any 'Turkey Day'. I'm sure you haven't had a decent 'turkey day' yet either."

"I've been abroad for over ten years, and I've only had one proper one, at my teacher's house. The other years have been neither turkey nor holiday, as you say, uninteresting. If you hadn't called today, I would have forgotten that tomorrow is 'Turkey Day'."

"If it were Chinese New Year, I'd definitely stay, no matter how crowded Chinatown is and how inconvenient it is to take the bus back out of state."

While Americans are enjoying their turkey dinners and the festive atmosphere is omnipresent, for many Chinese, Turkey Day is simply a day off from work, a holiday that cannot be elevated to the level of a family reunion. For many Chinese, "Turkey Day" is simply a holiday, which cannot be elevated to a family reunion. Especially for the Chinese who stubbornly adhere to the traditional Chinese culture and sense of belonging, the "Turkey Day", "Christmas" and other foreign festivals are always less of an interest and motivation to celebrate the holiday, simply do not forget it. On the contrary, Chinese traditional festivals such as "Dragon Boat Festival", "Mid-July Festival", "Mid-Autumn Festival" and "Lunar New Year" are full of attachment. I've been so attached to these festivals that I've always remembered to call home at the right time for the family reunion dinner and try to find time to celebrate, even though I can't really feel the festivities of the Chinese New Year.

No interest in the American tradition of Turkey Day, but the festive atmosphere of the holiday evoked strong thoughts of my classmates and I of our hometown and deep concern for our loved ones. "How long do we have to wait before we can go back to our home country for the Spring Festival?" They sighed in unison on the phone. After being far away from their homeland, they realized that going home for New Year's Eve is a kind of expectation, but also a kind of luxury, and they really realized the meaning of "doubly thinking of relatives during the festive season".