The Red Box

  Today, which is Sunday, I returned to my desk after finishing teaching my first class and I found a red box on my desk. I thought it was rather neat and every teacher had this box. I ignored it for a little while since I had my Chinese lessons and one more class to teach. Once everything was done and I had a chance to sit down I opened this red box with a baby's face on the front. I thought the baby face was a interesting decoration, actually I did not really think about it. Inside the box was candies and sweets and this red package with two ovals inside that were vacuumed wrapped. I had no idea what they were since I could not read Chinese nor could see through the packaging. So, I decided to ask the teacher who's desk is next to mine what it was. He told me it was egg. At first this confused me because I was thinking to myself, 'did he just say egg, why would someone give a sealed package of two eggs to someone?' He assured me that they were in fact eggs, then he also told me that people do not normally eat them when they are given as a gift in China because they do not taste very fresh. This of course reminded me of the never ending fruitcake tradition that apparently is said to occur in the United States. He then, seeing that I did not understand the reason for the box in the first place, preceded to expanse its presence. Apparently, whenever a teacher gets marries or has a baby every teacher at that school is given, by the new parent or newlywed whatever it may be, a red box to celebrate the occasion. As you could have guessed, by foreshadowing that occured earlier about the baby on the front of the box, a baby was born. I wish congratulations upon the new family and now sit here enjoying the sweets, but not the eggs!