A Rationed Turkey Day

Celebrating Thanksgiving in Singapore doesn’t feel quite the same. Instead of Columbus Day and Veterans Day, we here at TischAsia get school holidays for Hari Raya Puasa (the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting period) and Deepavali (Hindu New Year) and Chinese New Year (self explanatory). But Thanksgiving means nothing in South East Asia, except to a few Expats who use it as an excuse to throw a party. (I went to the movies with my friends Stuart and Andrew the weekend before, and found myself at a “Thanksgiving” party, afterwards, at their friend’s house. It seems like a lot of Expats throw various Thanksgiving parties throughout the weekend before and after Thanksgiving, which is interesting, because when I think of Thanksgiving, I think of one day: the actual Turkey Day itself, Thursday. But in Singapore, Thanksgiving, for obvious reasons, is a regular workday.

NYU TischAsia was supposed to be closed on Thanksgiving Day, in honor of Turkeys all over the world, but instead, our new Artistic Director, Mister Oliver Stone, decided to make this his first visit to campus that day. Not about to refuse such an honor, TischAsia decided to stay open for Thanksgiving. Turkey Day felt like a regular school day, except not so regular, because we were in the presence of the man who created Scarface, JFK, Nixon, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, World Trade Center, Midnight Express, and the newly released W. Mr. Stone held three workshops throughout the week; a writing workshop based on his script Midnight Express; a directing workshop, based on his script, Talk Radio; and he talked about how to break into the Entertainment Industry on the third day. It was interesting to learn about Mr. Stone and his movies, many of which I hadn’t seen before, and to see first hand that in order to become a successful three time Academy Award winner, one has to work their tail off. Mr. Stone wrote ten scripts and twenty treatments before selling his first script (Midnight Express). I won’t say anything more about the man himself: you’ll have to ask me that in private.

To make up for the fact that we had to be at school on Thanksgiving, NYU held a Thanksgiving dinner that evening. Gathered around with about 100 of our closest friends and faculty (and the plus ones), we squeezed into our canteen to share a meal of all the traditional fixings: mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and of course, rationed turkey. I stayed until the wee small hours of the morning talking politics and film with my beloved writing chair, Richard, and fellow classmate Mansita, along with a few others. I felt like I was at film school. Oh wait, I am! (Can somebody please tell me how that happened?)

In short, Thanksgiving was great, but just not the same as a good ole Racines-Gardner Family Thanksgiving. I couldn’t help but talk the night away about my family traditions and what crazy things one would expect from sharing a meal with the Gardner clan!

Until next time…