Year-round Birthday Gifts

As a child, I would hear about practices in other cultures that were so vastly different from mine. The kind of culturalisms that make you think either, “Wow, I’m glad I don’t live there,” or “That would be kind of cool!” 

Living in Indonesia, I’ve been able to experience a culture that:

• eats strange meats.
• uses only the right hand for doing things because the left hand is used for…. well…. other stuff.
• doesn't consider belching and …other gas passings inappropriate. In some places it can even be a compliment for a good meal.
• still uses witch doctors.
• practices giving gifts on one’s birthday instead of receiving gifts. This has mostly effected me at the Chinese school where I teach in the mornings. On a student’s birthday, the parents bring in 19 gifts for the classmates as well as gifts for all of the teachers. The gifts are typically a compilation of snacks that the child likes.

Sometimes though, I get some pretty outrageous gifts. These are some birthday presents I’ve gotten from students:

Well, this one is a class cake. For a pre-kindergarten class. What? It's huge.

We all got our own Angry Birds cakes!

A candy jar. Chubby white girl with curly blonde hair. I'm so glad I have straight hair now or else I'd think it was me. ;)

And the winner for the strangest present of all? 

I opened the box and there was this. A WHOLE fried chicken. Yup, there's it's head. It's feet were interlocked underneath it.

I've never had to do this with a birthday present before. It was strange, but I was actually really thankful for it! haha