Wow, what a turkey! It looks huge in the picture but actually its only a 12 pounder. It's not easy to get turkeys in China, but we can't let November go by without one, so we go to the local western food shop and buy an imported one for 240 Chinese Yuan, or $35. It's expensive but it's worth it. Old traditions die hard. By early November the taste buds start gearing up for turkey and we just have to have it.

The first year we were here we cooked a chicken. Ovens are not common equipment in the Chinese kitchen. They have not been bakers, traditionally. So our first year here we bought a small toaster oven that could accomodate a chicken nicely. So chicken sufficed for Thanksgivng that year. But the following year I was determined to find an electric oven big enough for a real turkey. Well, I searched high and low. Store after store had only little toaster ovens like I already had. But I wasn't giving up until I went to every department store I knew of. At last, I found it. It was the floor model, but it was a nice sized convection oven. I still wasn't quite sure if a whole turkey would fit so I went down to the store and got the turkey and brought it with me to make sure. Ahhh. Success at last. It was just big enough with about an inch of head space at the top.

Well, since then we have successfully cooked a turky or two every year. However, I have to make sure the turkey doesn't exceed 12 pounds. One year it was a bit too big and we had to cut it in half!

This year we invited some of our closest student-friends. We had a lot of fun. They were amazed at the size of the bird and they loved the gravy. They hadn't had it before and had many questions. What is this? How do you make it? And they poured it all over everything on the plate. In the past we have found that our Chinese friends are not much impressed with Thanksgivng dinner. Chinese food is generally a little more complex, and meat is rarely eaten plain without some sauce or vegetables to accompany it. But these young friends seemed to enjoy themselves, and we enjoyed their company. It was just like having a big family over.

Starting life in a new country has had various challenges. We came to China in 1999 to teach at the Foreign Language Training Center at the China National Petroleum University. When John found this school's invitation on Dave's ESL Cafe Website, I must admit, I had misgivings. I didn't like the sound of a Petroleum college. It sounded dark and, well, oily. But they wanted two teachers and they were happy to get a husband/wife team, so we accepted their offer. The school was right in the middle of the Haidian District in Beijing, which has hundreds of universities. However, our training center was housed in a little-used campus and was, o put it mildly, quite run down. We were housed in a one story quadra-plex attached to the school. Our rooms were about the size of a dorm, with a 4x8 "living-room/dining room, a bedroom big enough for our bed and a wardrobe and a small bathroom and tiny kitchen. Since there were two of us they gave us two such dorms, so we moved the bed out of one dorm and set up a "living room" where we had a bit more room to stretch out and entertain visitors. The only problem was we had to go out one door and in the next since the rooms were not adjoining. Well we adjusted by having the attitude that, hey, this is a foreign country. We weren't expecting to find ideal conditions, and maybe we just needed to rough it a little.

The nicest thing about the place was the little garden outside our doors, which is extremely rare in Beijing. Most apartments are in high rise buildings, so having a "private" yard was a real treat. John was able to set up his bar-b-que and we had many little parties with students out there. We even found a hedgehog nestled in the grass one day, which was a delight since 'wild life' is very rare. There are virtually no squirrels in the city, although rats abound. We had one visit us one night. I got up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom and I had this sense that I should go slow and turn on the light in the kitchen on my way to the bathroom. Usually I would just stumble through in the dark since it was only 2o steps. But this time I leaned into the kitchen and switched on the light. There, sitting on the windowsill was a healthy rat staring at me. I jumped onto the bed and yelled for John to wake up. I was relieved that he came to my rescue. He chased the rat around for a few minutes before opening the window and shoeing him out. A few minutes later, however, the rat was back coming up through the drain in the floor. He had managed to run around, get into the sewer and up through the pipes into our kitchen. Well, having discovered it's entry way, we weighted down the drain opening with a brick and solved the rat problem.

Teaching is my joy! Living in China is a great adventure and a challenge. Join me as I share my musings about the joys, pleasures, pains and trials of living in the PRC

.I have been living and teaching English in Beijing, China for 7 years now. My husband, John and I came to China in 1999, the 50th anniversary of the PRC. We teach at the Beijing Sports Unversity. Previously, we taught at the China National Petroleum University and the Beijing Language and Culture University. I graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1993 with a BA in Spanish. Two years later, I got a Master's Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language.