Thanksgiving Day in China: the chocolates on an ideological front line
- A dormitory manager at a northern Chinese university thought she was giving thanks to students by handing out sweets
- Before long, she would find herself apologising for her inappropriate behaviour
A new front has broken out in the culture wars in China – Thanksgiving Day chocolates.
At a university in the country’s north, a dormitory manager found herself at the centre of a storm on Thursday morning when she made the error of buying chocolates for students in the building as a gesture of thanks for their support.
Umbrage was taken, and an apology was offered but it took the university’s intervention before the threat from an American holiday was finally quelled and the chocolates were saved from becoming a symbol of a Western festival.
The storm erupted in the morning when the dormitory manager, identified only by her surname Wang, put a notice on an internal chat group for students at Building 17 at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, Heilongjiang province.
“Today is Western Thanksgiving Day. I want to express my gratitude for the support you have extended to the management of Building 17,” Wang said in the message that was later widely shared online.
“I will be giving out some chocolates at around 7.50am in the building foyer. First come, first served.”