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回答: 【活动】我的第一个感恩节 由 pilingjushi 于 2022-11-12 11:11 (Translated by pilingjushi) 6park.comI came to the US many years ago. I first went to a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. China had just opened up, so I, like everyone else I knew then, didn't know much about the outside world. Not surprisingly, as a shy, boyish 20-year-old, soon after I arrived in rural middle America, I began to feel really lonely and completely out of place! 6park.comAnyhow, I was working in the library one afternoon, heard people mentioning next day being "Thanksgiving," though I had no idea what that was. Honestly, I could care less as I was encountering so many new words daily that it felt overwhelming and confusing most of the time. I vaguely sensed this Thanksgiving must be the name of a holiday as there was no school the next day. Most of my classmates had left campus by that afternoon and the library was unusually quiet. 6park.comAll of a sudden, out of nowhere, a slender, middle-aged blonde lady showed up in front of me and introduced herself. "My name is Judy," she said, all smiles, asked for my name, and went on: "If you have no plans tomorrow, will you join our family for Thanksgiving dinner?" Although still new in America, I'd slowly got used to random local strangers approaching and talking to me, yet when a complete stranger suddenly showed up like this and invited me to go to her house, I was still quite shocked. I initially thought I had misunderstood her, but after confirming, I only became more confused. 6park.comA few weeks ago, I had been invited to spend a weekend with the family of a classmate named Adam, who I barely knew. In China, you do not invite someone you barely know to your house, let alone let him sleep over. But at least Adam was a classmate, I know who he was. But who this lady was I had no idea. "Why did she, a total stranger to me, approach me, a total stranger to her, and invite me to her house? What are her 'real motives'?" I asked myself but could find no answer. Yet looking at her face again, which seemed kind, I concluded, at least, she probably wasn't a malicious person! 6park.comAs agreed, Judy drove over the following day to pick me up from my dorm. On the way to her house, I expressed to her, in my best English, my perplexity about her invitation. I told her that in my country, it was unheard of a complete stranger would invite another stranger to her house for dinners on any occasion. Judy smiled and explained that her family had just moved from a big city to this small town. Since "Thanksgiving is a holiday where family and friends gather," she continued, "I figure a foreign student like you must feel really lonely on this day if you have nowhere to go, so that's why I went to your college and happened to meet you there." 6park.comSoon we reached her house, a one-story home not huge but very tidy inside. There I met Lyle, Judy's husband, tall and muscular, and their four children: the handsome and lanky Jimmy, with his girlfriend Joyce, who appeared really short next to him; Laura, their oldest daughter, a nurse, warm and chatty; Lucy, the light-haired middle daughter, more reserved and Jill, their youngest, a bit younger than me, with darker hair and a playful smile on her face. "Now the kids have grown and moved out," Lyle explained, "we decided to downsize when we moved." "Downsize" is yet another new word, though I managed to guess more or less its meaning in the conversation. | |||
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