{"id":7932,"date":"2012-12-25T08:47:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-25T13:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=7932"},"modified":"2012-12-25T08:47:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-25T13:47:26","slug":"trope-tuesday-peking-duck-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-peking-duck-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: Peking Duck Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pekingduckxmas\"<\/a>It’s Christmas<\/a>, but for whatever reason (most likely because you’re Jewish<\/a>), you don’t celebrate. \u00a0Or maybe you\u00a0do<\/em> celebrate Christmas, but you live in a place where no one else does.<\/p>\n

So December 25th comes around and you feel left out. \u00a0What do you do? \u00a0Simple–you find a cheap Chinese place, or somewhere similarly non-festive that’s open, and you eat out there. \u00a0As the tvtropes page<\/a> adds, bonus points if you bond with the owner despite the language barrier.<\/p>\n

This trope is more of a one-liner than anything else, but it pops up here and there. \u00a0Jon Stewart used it a couple of times on his show, and Brandon Harris Walker wrote his break-out song<\/a> about it. \u00a0Also, at Elena Kagan’s congressional hearing for the U.S. Supreme Court, she referenced this trope:<\/p>\n

\n
Sen.\u00a0Lindsey<\/a>\u00a0Graham (R-SC)<\/strong>: Christmas Day bomber. Where were you at on Christmas Day?<\/div>\n
Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0nominee Elena Kagan<\/strong>: Senator… I assume the question you mean is whether a person who’s apprehended in the United States\u2014<\/div>\n
Graham<\/strong>:(interrupting)<\/em>\u00a0Nah, I’m just asking where you were at on Christmas.<\/div>\n
Kagan<\/strong>:\u00a0(laughs)<\/em>\u00a0You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.<\/div>\n
(Laughter from crowd)<\/em><\/div>\n
Graham<\/strong>: Great answer!<\/div>\n
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)<\/strong>: I could just see that one coming…<\/div>\n
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)<\/strong>:\u00a0Because they’re the only places open<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So yeah, there’s actually a fair degree of truth to this trope, as I’m finding out this year. \u00a0Due to some poor planning on my part, I’m spending Christmas in Georgia, a full 14 days before the Georgian Orthodox Church celebrates it. \u00a0Yeah, December 25th in Tbilisi is pretty much the same as the 24th, or the 26th.<\/p>\n

But it’s actually not so bad. \u00a0I didn’t eat Chinese last night, but I did go to a local Georgian place with two Frenchmen, an Iranian, a guy from Singapore, a guy from Japan, a Georgian-American, and a global nomad who doesn’t know where he’s from anymore. \u00a0Today, I went to the Dry Bridge bazaar and bought myself an ornate mosaic chess board. \u00a0I’ll probaby fix some spaghetti tonight and Skype with my family before going to bed.<\/p>\n

So yeah, to those of you celebrating Christmas in the western hemisphere right now, merry Christmas! \u00a0And to everyone else, I hope you have a great day too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Christmas, but for whatever reason (most likely because you’re Jewish), you don’t celebrate. \u00a0Or maybe you\u00a0do celebrate Christmas, but you live in a place where no one else does. So December 25th comes around and you feel left out. \u00a0What do you do? \u00a0Simple–you find a cheap Chinese place, or somewhere similarly non-festive that’s… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Peking Duck Christmas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[773,263,641,565,626],"class_list":["post-7932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas-2012","tag-food","tag-trope-tuesday","tag-tropes-and-cliches","tag-tvtropes","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-23W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7932"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7937,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7932\/revisions\/7937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}