A Hong Kong Thanksgiving

I'm a little late in posting about my Hong Kong Thanksgiving, but it's not because I have nothing to say about one of my favorite holidays. Actually, my Thanksgiving experience here was much better than I expected it to be. I have spent one turkey day away from home before -- when studying abroad in Australia, and my mother was visiting at the time -- but this was the first time without any family members present.

Of course, on actual Thanksgiving Day, I was working. Our American harvest holiday is not recognized as an official holiday here, unsurprisingly (though they did show a "Happy Thanksgiving" advertisement on TV last week). At work, however, we hosted an English event during lunchtime and showed the children "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." A couple of my students -- those who have one American parent -- told me they would be celebrating that evening with a turkey, too.

Then, this past Saturday evening another American English teacher in my program organized a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. I think there were actually more English people there than Americans, along with a few Canadians, but it was still quite enjoyable. Our employer even bought a turkey for everyone to share! And there was Ocean Spray cranberry sauce as well.

I took pumpkin pie to the potluck dinner, which I made with a can of pumpkin that cost about $4 US. I used two pre-made graham cracker pie crusts to hold the pie filling, which was not my favorite idea; but I literally have no space in my apartment to roll out pie crust dough. Then, I baked the pies in my over-sized toaster oven. It turned out pretty well, and though they didn't taste quite like at home, it was still nice to have a semi-traditional Thanksgiving.