| Five generations of the Elia family will sit at the dinner table today to dine on turkey and stuffing. |
| But the extended family also will feast on tabouleh, humus and shish-kebob to honor Aziz Elia's Lebanese heritage, and jun, a fried fish and sweet potato dish, and chu shuk, a rice cake dessert, to make their Korean boarding students feel at home. |
| Sung-Ju Yoo, 18, and Young-Chan Jo, 17, are Governor French Academy students who live with host families in the metro-east. |
| "I never heard of people eating turkey in Korea," said Sung-Ju Yoo. |
| But that won't stop him from trying turkey for the first time this Thanksgiving holiday. |
| The distinctive American holiday helps Sung-Ju and Young-Chan to recall a similar holiday in Korea called Chu Suk. Based on the Chinese calendar, it is celebrated around September or October. |
| "Every year at harvest time, we just give thanks for all the food we made," Young-Chan said. |
| For Sung-Ju, who has been in the United States for only about eight months, American Thanksgiving means a day to eat turkey and take a break from school. But Young-Chan, who has been in America for about three years, has a fuller understanding of the holiday. |
| "Thanksgiving means people are gathering, I like that," he said. "In this house, there's a lot of people. I love it! |
| "The Elia family has four children who range in age from 24 to 17. The oldest three are Governor French Academy graduates and the youngest, Nicole, is a senior at the school. The extended family includes their 5-week-old grandson as well as Michelle Elia's parents and grandmother. The Elias and Michelle's parents and grandmother each have homes on the property, which has been in the family for more than 80 years. |
| For their Thanksgiving celebration, the Elias will host 15-20 people, including two employees from their company who are from India. The couple owns Computer Power Solutions, a computer programming company in Columbia. The Elias employ about 25 people, some of whom come from India, Cameroon, China and Taiwan. |
| Aziz Elia said he feels a special sensitivity toward international students because he was one himself 30 years ago. He emigrated from Beirut to St. Louis to study aviation at Parks College, where he met Michelle. |
| While Aziz said that he and his wife of 26 years have been perfecting their own Thanksgiving holiday tradition, he was exposed to the holiday while living among Americans in Saudi Arabia when his dad worked there in the oil industry. He said his mother, who lives in Lebanon, still cooks a turkey on Thanksgiving. |
| "There's a big cultural change between the Middle East and the U.S.," said Aziz Elia. "And Korea is very traditional. In the U.S., we tend to break traditions. (Young-Chang)'s benefit is he's experiencing both the Middle Eastern culture as well as the American culture. |
| "The Elias became a host family for boarding students when their son Justin, 19, befriended Young-Chan when he was a student at Governor French. |
| "Southern Illinois doesn't have much diversity here, and I was really interested in other people's culture," said Justin, who is now a sophomore at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville studying political science, international relations and the Korean language. |
| The two are now best friends and Justin has been to Korea with Young-Chan twice. |
| "To me, the people here are my family," said Young-Chan. "I call Michelle "umma" which means mom in Korean. When Justin went to Korea, he thinks of my mom as his second mom. |
| "Michelle Elia said that it's important for her children to be exposed to different cultures, especially given their own multicultural background. |
| "That's why I sent my kids to Governor French, because it's so diverse," she said. "For life, it's mandatory to be diverse, it's not an option. |