My Thanksgiving in China

Thursday

I woke up sore. I didnt think I would be because yesterday power training wasn't too hard. But this morning I had a hard time getting up. I had a power bar instead of going down to breakfast because 1. I was too sore to get out of bed. and 2. I was still kinda full from food from next door when we celebrated Kjitel's birthday.


Anyway made it to class.  Morning class was painful. Kjitel stretched me like crazy but I got my revenge. Then the drills were not to bad. After drills, we hit the punching bags, and then at the end Master Gou had us run and kick a pad that he held up pretty high while he stood on a stool. It was fun.


Before lunch I started watching a movie called Ip Man. It is an amazing movie! I was so into the movie I did not even go down for lunch. The movie is about a man who practiced Wing Chun. This is a biography of the guy who trained Bruce Lee.  It really made me want to learn Wing Chun 10 times more. If you havent seen it I suggest you watch it. 

(You can see a sample on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y67D9I5MRqg&feature=related  

Ed.)


Afternoon class was Baji. After drills I paired up with Gram and we did Wing Chun slap boxing. You are supose to hit the houlders and hips for points. The trick is we can grab and kick so it made things a bit more difficult. It was a good way to practice my speed. After that we did some pad work. When I was punching I reopened a scab on my knuckle I got a few days ago and blood was all over my hand and a bit on the pad. 


After class I went upstairs. Joseph was walking by my room and I remembed it was Thanksgiving today so I wished him Happy thanksgiving. He totally forgot all about it. I told him my parents sent me some precooked turkey and gravy dinners and he can have some with me if he likes. While I was showing him the food, Matt stopped by to pick up the movie I borrowed off of him. I told him we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving and he can have some. These are turkey and stuffing dinners  that are in little plastic tubs.  didn't need to be in refrigerator nor a can opener.  My dad suggested I warm the dinners up on the radiatiors, I thought that was a great idea except for the fact that radiators don't get hot 'till nighttime. We didn't want to wait that late.  So I got a bucket the academy gave us. People use it for washing stuff. I never used mine. I told Joseph to come with me to fill up two water thermos' with hot water, while Matt got the spoons. we got the stuff all together. I showed the guys I even got a can of Cranberry sauce (from care package) but no can opener. Joseph went to his room and got a knife and started trying to open the can. I got the bucket, filled the bucket with hot water and put the dinners in. The academy won't allow us to have microwaves in our rooms. But I did have the drinking water cooler that had a side for hot water so I had an unlimited amount of hot water.  

While turkey dinners were warming up and Joseph worked on the can, I got some crackers out, nutella (also from care package), and other snacks. Once joseph got the can open we started thinking who else were Americans. 

Joseph said how about Exavier, AKA X. So Joseph went down the hall to find him. X is a vegitarian but he came to join us because today is the day when he will eat meat. X is a cool guy. I never talked to him much besides seeing him in the halls and around but he came to join our little feast and he is cool. I added another dinner to my hot water heater. I put another bucket on top of the 'cooking' bucket so the heat would stay inside a bit better. X was so shocked we were doing something. Joseph told him it was all my idea because he forgot about Thanksgiving. I told them my parents sent me several turkey dinners so I can celebrate with a few of my friends here. They all said, "We love you and your parents." X was even shocked how I figured out a way to warm up our turkey dinners. 

After a while we checked the dinners and they were very hot and ready. While we ate we all talked about different stories of home, about what we would be doing with our family if we were there today and about different stories of our masters. It was a great bonding time. I had two more turkey dinners left, X and Matt didnt want any more since they finished off their dinners and had started eating some peanuts, crackers, and easy cheese (canned cheese from care pack), so Joseph and I threw those two dinners in my hot water 'cooker' and waited for them to warm up. 

Mat  X  Me  and Joseph at Thanksgiving

Mat  X  Me  and Joseph at Thanksgiving

I do not think I could have spent Thanksgiving any better than in my room with three of my Kung Fu brothers. Joseph is from Gorgia, X is from Florida, Matt is from Saint Martin in the Caribians so he never celebrated Thanksgiving before, but I can honestly say, I will always remember this Thanksgiving. After we all ate we didn't know what to do next. X went down to dinner to get a vegitarian dinner, so Joseph borrowed some of X's movies and we decided to watch a movie. We chose "House of Flying Daggers" and watched it on Joseph's laptop since his screen was bigger than mine. We had a great time watching it. Even Sam watched a bit of the movie with us when he came in to the room. Joseph bought us some cookies from the store downstairs to eat and dip in nutella and my peanut butter and jelly.




After the movie the guys went back to there rooms. I cleaned up a bit and now going to bed.


Tomorrow is the mountain run.


I was sad when i was coming here because I knew I would miss Thanksgiving with my family and all the food. Today I had Thanksgiving with my new family.


Happy Thanksgiving everyone.


-Scott