Christmas in Chengdu
Because we went back to the UK in November for my Dad’s 70th birthday celebration, we decided to stay here over Christmas, and possibly travel somewhere in China. It’s a good time of year to travel because it's not a holiday here, so you don't get the enormous crowds of determined pleasure-seekers that you see during the May, October and New Year holidays. As it turns out, however, our passports are all going to be at the police station for renewal of our residence visas, so we won’t even be doing that. But we have never had Christmas here before as a family (we draw a veil over the first year here, when Isaac and I went back to the UK, but Ethan stayed because of work obligations and ended up spending two weeks in hospital due to a severe allergic reaction), so we have decided to make the best of it and create our own holiday atmosphere.
This isn’t so difficult in fact, because the Chinese are embracing Christmas as never before. I was aware of a definite increase in tinsel, fake snow and sparkly Santa faces strung up around the place every year. This stuff is all made in China, after all, so why shouldn’t some of it be sold here? And more and more people join in the local tradition for young people to gather in the main square downtown on Christmas Eve and have fun. Well what they actually do is smash each other over the head with long balloons, but why they do it is a mystery. It’s one of those things like a Mexican wave, that someone starts and everyone else just runs with. Xiao Long says you can’t walk 3 feet downtown without being assaulted by a complete stranger, usually painlessly but not always. She said that someone died in Tianfu Square on Christmas Eve last year, although she wasn’t sure what of. I suspect that a traffic accident is more likely to have been the cause than a balloon assault.
This trend is not going away, though, it has a life of it’s own. A young woman asked Ethan this week how he would be celebrating Christmas and he explained that it’s a day to be with the family, eat a large meal, open presents and play with the children. Then he asked how she would be celebrating. “Oh we celebrate the same way that you do in the west”, she said confidently, “by hitting each other with balloons.”
The misunderstandings about Christmas run deep. Xiao Long asked me last week if Christmas is our western version of the Chinese New Year. I said that it’s true it is our major holiday and it is followed by our new year celebration, but Christmas itself is a religious holiday. This was totally news to her. I felt that further explanations were called for, so I dug out a lift-the-flap nativity book that Sam’s Godmother sent him for his birthday, and went through it explaining the Christmas story in Chinese. I felt a bit like a missionary, which was a new experience, but I decided it was more cultural enlightenment than conversion. Xiao Long had heard of Christianity before I think, but not Jesus and she certainly hadn’t a clue that Christmas was his birthday. Certain elements of the story made sense to her however; she kept saying things like, “oh, so that’s why you put a star on top of the Christmas tree”, and “is that why you give gifts at Christmas?”
Later in the week her daughter Zeng Jing had to write up some notes about Christmas on her classroom notice-board, so I printed out a bunch of pages from a Chinese internet site, which explained every tradition in detail for a Chinese audience. (I’ll translate a few choice sentences later if I have the chance.) So now her family are pretty much the local experts on all things to do with Christmas. This has its downside for Xiao Long: Zeng Jing now wants them to actually celebrate Christmas and has been asking if she could have a Christmas stocking so Santa would bring her presents as well. After all, he is supposed to visit every girl and boy. I was given some red and white stockings in a store promotion so I said that I would prepare stockings for Zeng Jing and her two cousins.
In addition to feeling like a missionary I now also feel slightly guilty of increasing the spread of commercial Christmas. Seeing all of my preparations, Xiao Long and Xiao Zeng both went out and bought presents for the boys and gift-wrapped them to put under the tree. They only just brought presents for their birthdays and no doubt they will buy them again at Chinese New Year, and they are far too generous. Xiao Long spent 80 yuan on Isaac’s birthday present, which is about one-fifteenth of her monthly salary. If we spent the same percentage of our income on Zeng Jing she really would think that Santa had come to visit.
Xiao Long's family aren't the only ones paying more attention to Christmas; I can't speak for other parts of China but here in Chengdu, everyone seems to be catching on. A Tibetan friend invited us out for a Christmas meal this year instead of waiting until the Tibetan New Year as he usually does, and Ethan's colleagues dropped by on Christmas Eve with a bottle of wine and an enormous bouquet of flowers (after first making sure that we wouldn't be spending the evening carousing with balloons at Tianfu Square). It's the custom to send out text messages wishing your friends good fortune at Chinese holidays, but this year people sent them out for Christmas as well. They say things like, "may this Christmas tree bring you vitality, happiness, wealth, fortune and good luck", or "may your wallet be as full as Santa's bag of presents!"
Santa, provider of stuff, is definitely the leading light of commercial Christmas. At Isaac’s school holiday program there were 3 separate plays set in Lapland, featuring naughty elves and Father and Mrs. Christmas. It's an international school with children from many cultures so that’s fair enough, I’m not expecting them to put on a nativity play like the local Church of England primary. (If we wanted that we could pop down the road to the Chengdu International School, which has a very religious focus and asks parents to sign a statement pledging their child’s education to God.) All the same I did breathe a sigh of relief, after the parade of elves, when Isaac and the other children sang Silent Night. Up to that point if Xiao Long had been present she could have listened to the whole program and still been none the wiser about the reason for Christmas.
This isn’t so difficult in fact, because the Chinese are embracing Christmas as never before. I was aware of a definite increase in tinsel, fake snow and sparkly Santa faces strung up around the place every year. This stuff is all made in China, after all, so why shouldn’t some of it be sold here? And more and more people join in the local tradition for young people to gather in the main square downtown on Christmas Eve and have fun. Well what they actually do is smash each other over the head with long balloons, but why they do it is a mystery. It’s one of those things like a Mexican wave, that someone starts and everyone else just runs with. Xiao Long says you can’t walk 3 feet downtown without being assaulted by a complete stranger, usually painlessly but not always. She said that someone died in Tianfu Square on Christmas Eve last year, although she wasn’t sure what of. I suspect that a traffic accident is more likely to have been the cause than a balloon assault.
This trend is not going away, though, it has a life of it’s own. A young woman asked Ethan this week how he would be celebrating Christmas and he explained that it’s a day to be with the family, eat a large meal, open presents and play with the children. Then he asked how she would be celebrating. “Oh we celebrate the same way that you do in the west”, she said confidently, “by hitting each other with balloons.”
The misunderstandings about Christmas run deep. Xiao Long asked me last week if Christmas is our western version of the Chinese New Year. I said that it’s true it is our major holiday and it is followed by our new year celebration, but Christmas itself is a religious holiday. This was totally news to her. I felt that further explanations were called for, so I dug out a lift-the-flap nativity book that Sam’s Godmother sent him for his birthday, and went through it explaining the Christmas story in Chinese. I felt a bit like a missionary, which was a new experience, but I decided it was more cultural enlightenment than conversion. Xiao Long had heard of Christianity before I think, but not Jesus and she certainly hadn’t a clue that Christmas was his birthday. Certain elements of the story made sense to her however; she kept saying things like, “oh, so that’s why you put a star on top of the Christmas tree”, and “is that why you give gifts at Christmas?”
Later in the week her daughter Zeng Jing had to write up some notes about Christmas on her classroom notice-board, so I printed out a bunch of pages from a Chinese internet site, which explained every tradition in detail for a Chinese audience. (I’ll translate a few choice sentences later if I have the chance.) So now her family are pretty much the local experts on all things to do with Christmas. This has its downside for Xiao Long: Zeng Jing now wants them to actually celebrate Christmas and has been asking if she could have a Christmas stocking so Santa would bring her presents as well. After all, he is supposed to visit every girl and boy. I was given some red and white stockings in a store promotion so I said that I would prepare stockings for Zeng Jing and her two cousins.
In addition to feeling like a missionary I now also feel slightly guilty of increasing the spread of commercial Christmas. Seeing all of my preparations, Xiao Long and Xiao Zeng both went out and bought presents for the boys and gift-wrapped them to put under the tree. They only just brought presents for their birthdays and no doubt they will buy them again at Chinese New Year, and they are far too generous. Xiao Long spent 80 yuan on Isaac’s birthday present, which is about one-fifteenth of her monthly salary. If we spent the same percentage of our income on Zeng Jing she really would think that Santa had come to visit.
Xiao Long's family aren't the only ones paying more attention to Christmas; I can't speak for other parts of China but here in Chengdu, everyone seems to be catching on. A Tibetan friend invited us out for a Christmas meal this year instead of waiting until the Tibetan New Year as he usually does, and Ethan's colleagues dropped by on Christmas Eve with a bottle of wine and an enormous bouquet of flowers (after first making sure that we wouldn't be spending the evening carousing with balloons at Tianfu Square). It's the custom to send out text messages wishing your friends good fortune at Chinese holidays, but this year people sent them out for Christmas as well. They say things like, "may this Christmas tree bring you vitality, happiness, wealth, fortune and good luck", or "may your wallet be as full as Santa's bag of presents!"
Santa, provider of stuff, is definitely the leading light of commercial Christmas. At Isaac’s school holiday program there were 3 separate plays set in Lapland, featuring naughty elves and Father and Mrs. Christmas. It's an international school with children from many cultures so that’s fair enough, I’m not expecting them to put on a nativity play like the local Church of England primary. (If we wanted that we could pop down the road to the Chengdu International School, which has a very religious focus and asks parents to sign a statement pledging their child’s education to God.) All the same I did breathe a sigh of relief, after the parade of elves, when Isaac and the other children sang Silent Night. Up to that point if Xiao Long had been present she could have listened to the whole program and still been none the wiser about the reason for Christmas.
posted by Cat Platt at 4:37 pm
2 Comments:
I have enjoyed your blog from time to time over the last several months, and I thought it time to let you know there was a lurker out there. I don't know how open you are to "strange" visitors, but I have so enjoyed your tales of your life in China, a place I have never been, that I can't keep myself from coming back to see if you've posted anything new. Yours is one of the few sites that I discovered and perused during our time in Italy when we had veeery slooow internet. Now we live in Ohio and are experiencing a little more "convenient" life!
It is a surprise to even find out that anyone has read my blog, so I am very pleased to hear you enjoy it and I will try to post more often. Access to blogger is intermittent here in China so I don't get the chance very often. Thanks for commenting!
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