{"id":25488,"date":"2024-12-13T05:38:26","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T05:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eyeweb.in\/newmind\/?p=25488"},"modified":"2024-12-13T05:42:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T05:42:02","slug":"thankful-for-food-thankful-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/thankful-for-food-thankful-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankful for Food, Thankful for Life."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By JENNA KANE, LINGCHAO MAO and CAROLINE CORNISH<\/strong><\/p>

On Tuesday, November 22nd, in New Mind at NCSU\u2019s festively decorated office, UPP students feasted on classic dishes seen at most American Thanksgiving tables. This was food that most Chinese students had never tasted before: turkey, stuffing, sweet potato pie\/casserole and cranberry relish dishes, iconic staples to the fabled meal. \u00a0Other dishes including honey spiraled ham, corn souffle, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, yeast rolls, and gravy lined the makeshift serving tables. The whole office was warmly scented by the traditional Thanksgiving aromas of pumpkin spice and cinnamon apples. Bright autumn colors splashed festive cheer on the walls, and decorative paper-turkeys and autumn flowers littered the tables; students really drank in the authentic taste of Thanksgiving celebrations in the U.S.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Upon entering this warm atmosphere, interns handed students letters to themselves from the Shelton Challenge Leadership summer camp that they participated in three months ago. Along with the letters, they saw team pictures, and funny and exhausted young faces\u2026 Our students laughed and recalled with each other their first memorable experience in the United States.<\/p>

Those whose eyes were blinded with hunger did not spend time contemplating their Shelton letters and ran straight to the food tables. Advisors became professional waitresses and served students\u2019 plates overflowing with food, encouraging them to taste all that was available in this harvest bounty. Many of the students were delightfully surprised by the different foods. Interns discussed with them the differences between \u201cdark meat\u201d and \u201cwhite meat\u201d, but cranberry relish remained a great mystery on the table. While many students remained divided on which meat was superior (ham or turkey?), a popular favorite was the mashed potatoes. Surprisingly to the Americans, the pecan pie was almost untouched, reinforcing for our staff again that sweet-teeth are less common in China than the U.S.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cIt\u2019s the first time that I ate turkey and it\u2019s very different than I expected. I always thought that they were smoked like Chinese barbecue\u201d, said Hunter Huang; Aurora Ding thought, \u201cthe food was very traditional and American. My favourite food was the turkey although it is not very salty.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThe food was great. I feel I can eat lots more. The environment was great, too, and it reminded me of Chinese New Year,\u201d said Sam Jia.<\/p>

While Thanksgiving is a food-centered holiday, there were a few other activities to help students get into the Thanksgiving spirit. Students were able to partake in a Thanksgiving photo booth where they could pose with pilgrim hats and assorted food cut-outs. There was also a Thankfulness tree where students filled out what they were thankful for on little autumn leaves.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A popular message was \u201cLet me pass IEP please\u201d, and \u201cKirsh, [a famously difficult teacher] please let me pass\u201d. Some of other messages were more appreciative, \u201cThanks for this Life,\u201d \u201cThanks for my parents,\u201d and \u201cThanks to my advisor.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cI like the cards students wrote,\u201d said Starry Gao, \u201cI think that is memorable.\u201d<\/p>

Thanksgiving is one of the most important holidays of American culture and a rich traditional background remains behind it. The goals of this event was to provide students positive exposure to an iconic holiday tradition through taste, smell, sight and sound, while also engaging their hearts and minds by asking them to consider privilege and gratitude. Overall, it was a lovely, relaxing time where students, interns, and staff gathered together at the end of the year to celebrate family and unity, providing a profound sense of inclusion during the holidays.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Todd Weng shared, \u201cI\u2019ve never celebrated Thanksgiving before, since it\u2019s my first time. \u00a0It\u2019s quite unique for me and I had a variety of food I\u2019ve never tasted before so I think it\u2019s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>

Kaia also really enjoyed her Thanksgiving and said, \u201cI love this event, and I love the foods. And the decorations on the tables surprised me so much, they looked so formal and beautiful, and that made me feel happy and warm. Thank you to all the staff.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JENNA KANE, LINGCHAO MAO and CAROLINE CORNISH On Tuesday, November 22nd, in New Mind at NCSU\u2019s festively decorated office,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-student-voices"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25488"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25497,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25488\/revisions\/25497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}