Growing up, the Lin family Thanksgiving tradition was simple: my brother and I playing football with church youth group friends, buying last-minute groceries, assisting mom and dad with cooking and cleaning, and then heading to the potluck dinner at our Taiwanese Church. The dinner always included one small symbolic turkey along with 99 other delicious Chinese dishes.
It was around Thanksgiving that I observed one interesting thing about my parents. They never said “Thank you” very much, that weekend or any weekend for that matter. They never expressed it to the other cooks in the church kitchen or to the checkout cashiers at the store. They never said “Thank You” to me.