Thanksgiving Speech

By Mark Bradt

First of all I want to thank you all for coming to the English Corner’s thanksgiving party. My name is Mark, and I am a tutor here at the corner. I am incredibly excited to be sharing this part of American culture with everyone here today. To start off, I would like to give you a little Thanksgiving history to better understand the relationship this holiday has with our culture. While Christmas and Easter are celebrated throughout western culture, Thanksgiving is solely an American holiday. The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621 Virginia by Pilgrims who were celebrating the harvest and giving thanks to their Christian God. Since then it has become a secular national holiday of giving thanks for what we all have and share. Families get together for a large dinner that consists of just as many recipes as America has families. Most often, large quantities of Turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing are eaten by all, before passing out in front of whatever football game happens to be on.

As a child I was never a fan of Thanksgiving. There weren’t any presents, there weren’t any games, and I didn’t like football. Being little, I didn’t really understand the concept of being thankful for all that I had in life, and seeing relatives just meant that I would have to give my old grandmother a kiss. Thanksgiving however, is the holiday that has grown on me the most as I’ve grown up. It is perhaps the holiday that most encourages a moment of introspective reflection and gently prods us to realize just how amazing all of our lives really are. So even though this Holiday is foreign to most of you, I hope you will all take a moment to reflect on the good things in your life and be grateful for them. I currently feel like I have far too many things in my life to be thankful for. I am thankful that I get to see my amazing girlfriend Rachel every day even though I am 7,000 miles away from home. I am thankful for all of the new friends and experiences I’ve had here in Taiwan. I am thankful for the amazing staff here at Shih Hsin who so often go above and beyond in making us feel welcome. I am thankful for Rita’s amazing decorations and I am most obviously thankful for the delicious food we are about to start eating.

Finally, it can be hard for us exchange students to be so far away from home. This is doubly true during the Holidays. So I would like to thank Lilly for organizing all of this. It wouldn’t have been possible without her. Thank you all for coming, let’s eat!