The internet has made finding realia so much easier. It’s pretty easy to pluck an authentic news story or find a relevant video clip from YouTube. But with the holidays around the corner and all of the traditional food that Americans eat on Thanksgiving and Christmas, it might be time to bring in some more interesting realia: food!

If you have pumpkin in your area, you can make pumpkin pie.  Or pumpkin cookies like in the picture above, since, in case you didn’t know, no one eats pumpkin outside the US. Students will love to try it! And many will think it is disgusting, so it can be pretty funny. You can integrate these food items into your curriculum in many ways. You could bring it in and have it be the start of a conversation or a discussion. If you’re in another country, you could have a debate about if local stores should sell American food.

You could also have your students make the food in class. This could be good practice for following directions if you have one student dictate the recipe to another who isn’t allowed to read it. It could even be a listening activity if you have a high tech classroom and access to videos from foodnetwork.com or marthastewart.com

Other classic American foods include: scrambled eggs, pancakes, cookies, fruit salad with marshmallows (ambrosia),  meatloaf and more. This activity is totally optional and might just be something you add to a end of class party. But food can be a fun realia in the classroom. So give it a try and don’t be afraid to bring in things that you think taste bad. Some people might like them.

Although there’s been some press about how inhospitable to tourists Beijing will be during the Olympics, this video, in complete saccharine madness, argues otherwise.

Since we’re taking a trip to Beijing in about a month, it was cool to see all the sites in this video (Apparently all the singers are famous people too. Did you see Jackie Chan?). But I also laughed at several parts, just because the song is so long and there are so many huge smiles in it and there are, like, several beautiful women telling me their doors are always open…it just got kind of silly.

But when I looked at the comments, everyone was taking the video totally seriously!

When I pointed out what I thought was one of the funniest quotes to Jewel, our resident Mandarin speaker, she was able to explain why I thought the video was funny even though it’s not supposed to be. Here’s the line:

The flowing enchantment and charms are filled with youthful spirit and vitality.

Apparently, that’s relatively normal speech in China. While in recent decades the English style has become as concise as possible, Chinese writers (and weird promotional video makers) embrace flowery language.

This gives me even more reason to learn Mandarin. When I first started writing I was drawn to the flowery style. Now I like being economical with words, but it took some getting used to. Maybe I find my way back to the sinuous delights of language wrought with sonorous hues, or something like that.

But anyway, I suppose the tendency to be over the top with language might help explain this highly exuberant video. I can’t wait to get over there and see the enthusiasm first hand. I want to learn the “Beijing welcomes you” part and sing it to people when they ask how I like the city.