Thanksgiving was last Thursday, four days ago. I was invited to a family in the farm which is about 50 miles away from where I live, Cleveland, Ohio. You may ask the question, "Hey, Cotton Boy, haven't we entered to the metric era two decades ago? Why are you still using miles instead of kilometers?" The answer is not complicated because Americans don't want to change, I believe. Let's make it simple, 1 "Mile" is equal to 1.60934 "Kilometer" (km). I will not be able to currently provide you the total km that I had maneuvered; you have to do the math on your own as I am still quite confused and dazzled by constantly converting the length, weight, area, speed and more between the metric system used in Asia and the imperial system traditionally well-adapted in the U.S. In conclusion, it took me slightly more than an hour to reach the destination by driving.
While I was on the road, both sides were covered thousands acres of corn fields. The acute dwindling temperature perished the lengthy leafy corn stalks. Many of them were still attaching ears but they all looked deceased with the lifeless color of light brown. I pondered when the farmers will return to the land, cut the dry stalks, bundle them and plant new baby corns. For your reference, 37% of the United States acres are corn fields and the State of Ohio has a big share of the figure.
My friend’s family’s farm house is gigantic. The size of her property is bigger than a leisure park in Hong Kong. If I take a walk around the parameter, it will probably consume at least 45 minutes to return the point where I began. I won’t be going into details of this farm in which chicken and goats are outnumbering to the residents.
During the Thanksgiving dinner, we prayed and chatted. I, as a Chinese, in fact, have had no tradition practicing the celebration of Thanksgiving. Who do I thank? Many Chinese don’t believe in god as Communism ridded him out; or god, in fact, never exists according to our teachings. “Wait a minute, to assimilate and immerse correctly to the culture, I need to make a toast to thank God for what we have. I loudly presented, “WORLD PEACE” before the meal was served.
The direct response from one of the home owners was, “World peace? Hell No, who cares about it? Let’s put the world economy as the first priority. We are not holding a beauty pageant competition.” I looked down and rubbed my fingers; all these countries were emerging gradually in my mind; “Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Congo, Somalia…” I thought I did a good job of showing my caring side during these festive seasons. I guess from now on, “World peace” should be replaced by “World economy”. Does it sound better? Please don't say “Hell No” to me.
