For the past couple of weeks my English Club students have been learning about Christmas. They do not celebrate Christmas here. The closest holiday they have to Christmas is Shin Jil (New Year's). As described in my last post, they decorate Shin Jil with tinsel, Christmas trees, pictures of Santa (some people even dress up as Santa) and so on, so it looks very much like Christmas--but they are celebrating the new year. Therefore, most Mongolians will tell you that they know Christmas--but really they are refering to New Year's (they think it is one and the same). I thought I had it easy when I was teaching them about American Christmas traditions because they all seemed to know about it already. Then when I had them make Christmas cards they all wrote 'New Year' or 'Happy New Year' or 'Good luck New Year' etc. I decided that my next lesson will be more in depth to explain why we celebrate Christmas and the difference between that and New Year's.
That was an interesting lesson. I have been teaching my students the Christmas Hymn "Silent Night" (they LOVE to sing and want to learn many english songs). While the song was going on in the background I asked if they knew who Jesus Christ was. Some didn't and some only recognized his name when I said it in Mongolian. So then I put the two words together "Christ" and "Christ-mas" I heard a lot of oooooooooh's. A light bulb had turned on. I told them that Christmas is religous and it is celebrating Christ's birth-- not the new year. Obviously there is more history behind Christmas but I couldn't get into a deep conversation, nor a history lesson with them.
Now that they know the difference it is time to make decorations for the Christmas Party! We made a Christmas chain, Angels and snowflakes. For the Christmas chain they wrote on each strip what they wanted for Christmas. I was impressed that most of the things they wanted were not materialistic. They wanted peace, health, happiness, a cleaner environment, good health to friends, etc. So I told them (after they had written quite a few) that they could also say which THINGS they wanted. So as an example I went first and I wrote 'I want perfume for Christmas'. They all laughed like it was silly, but they got the hang of it. PS, I really do want perfume for Christmas. I miss the clean fresh scents!
The party went very well. We had it last night. My mom will be proud to know that I brought her Christmas Bingo set with me here. All students were to bring a small gift (worth less that 1000 Tugriks) and put it on a table where they were then numbered. Instead of raffling the gifts off, we played Christmas bingo a million times until every student won a gift. It was a good way to teach them holiday nouns and explain other traditions (such as stockings). We then sang Silent Night. I used the Peter Breinholt version (beautiful!). The students were still struggling, but we sang it a few times to get it down. After the singining we ate and danced.
Meanwhile, the teachers had their own table. We drew names a couple of weeks ago and bought a gift worth up to 10,000 tugiks for the name we drew. Here is a picture of me giving my gift. When giving gifts you must give with both hands and receive it with both hands. (Or you can give it with your right hand only, while the left hand is touching your elbow and the receiver must also receive it in this way).
I received a nice, red, leather notebook, some pens and some hand lotion (that I did desparately need!). One Christmas party down and one more to go.
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