Gratitude.

There are numerous studies that conclude with gratitude as being one notch in the key to happiness. I am so grateful for this past year and everyone that I had the honor of forming/continuing friendships with. Naturally, being in China and all, I am taking lots of pictures. Whenever my camera makes that annoying beep and the screen turns black with illuminated red writing reading, “Memory Card Full,” there are a few pictures/videos that I skip over before deleting others.

I’ve saved the pictures onto my computer and external hard drive. I know this. I’ve checked and double checked several times. My irrational, sentimental side kicks in and I am debilitated. For two seconds, my thumbs inexplicably lose the ability to press the delete button. Yes, I’m blaming my thumbs.

What are these pictures, you ask? Well, péngyǒu, take a peek:

Each of these has more than meets the eye, as pictures normally do. They remind me of so much more than is in the picture. If you want, you can ask me someday and I’ll be happy to share the stories with you.

This Thanksgiving, I sure have a lot to be thankful for. The hospitality and kindness that has been shown to me in China is incredible. I’ll tell you about my Thanksgiving and you’ll see why.

About two weeks ago, my friends from the speech club I attend on Wednesdays asked me my plans for Thanksgiving. After telling them that I had none, they asked if they would like a little cultural exchange and they could cook for me and I could cook for them. Needless to say, I was stoked. I was pretty darn excited for Thanksgiving.

I even bought silverware.

On Thanksgiving, before we got to the store, my friends told me that they had a surprise for me. They took me to a music store. I'll tell you more about what happened at the music store in my Christmas post.

After my wonderful surprise, we left for the supermarket. We bumped into another foreign teacher named John. He invited us to a restaurant for Thanksgiving with some of his friends. My friends were so excited to meet another foreigner that we unanimously agreed to join John.

A little Thanksgiving hot pot.

Unexpected kindness and friendships have been a big part of my life this past year. Welcome to the season of gratitude and unconditional kindness, my friends.

I also wanted to include a picture of what I did in class this week. For most of class we did an exercise in gratitude. We wrote thank you letters to people in our lives who we don't normally thank. In addition to making more women cry at one time than The Notebook, we drew Turkey Hands with what we are thankful for. Here are some of my favorites:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!