Tamer Lorika

Celebrating Christmas abroad, especially for those who love the holiday and all the traditions they are used to, can be hard. When everything is totally different, from the language and the food to the weather and the customs, it is even harder. It makes working in the Peace Corp a challenge, but holds potential rewards for those who venture out with an open mind and a willingness to accept those who are different from themselves and what they are used to. Adrian teaches English in Mongolia and encounters massive culture shock when he first arrives, but it gets much worse around Christmas—a holiday that is not really known there.

And here is what I totally adored about this story, beyond it teaching me a little about a culture I am not at all familiar with: the emotions Adrian’s new friends made him feel, the way they accept him and do things for him, are exactly what Christmas should be all about. Yes, the details of what they come up with and how they “translate” Christmas to local ways of doing things make it look different—but that is just trimmings. At the heart of this story, Adrian gets a Christmas that is just as fulfilling as the one he’d have had at home in Texas. To me, that is a true miracle and made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Adrian and his fellow English teacher Batbayar’s growing friendship is fascinating. Batbayar is not a very demonstrative guy, at least not in a physical way when others are around. He is also not a man of many words. But then, as Adrian notices, that seems to be a general cultural way of behaving. As an observer from the outside, it is very difficult for Adrian to understand how couples even form, since he never knows people got together until they announce the wedding. No wonder he struggles with knowing how serious Batbayar may or not be. Adrian only knows it’s getting pretty serious for him. It takes the Christmas gifts they are giving each other for them to be sure.

If you like stories about truly different cultures and their customs, if you want to find out how two men bridge the wide chasm between their backgrounds and expectations and if you’re looking for an amazing, heartwarming, and stunningly emotional story told in very few words and by evoking some amazing images, then you will probably like this short story as much as I did. Its brevity is deceiving, and the hidden depths may take some work to find, but to me, that made the experience of reading this even better.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.
… (mais)