Flumesday.com - Chinese Confused About Christmas

Chinese Confused About Christmas
As my friend Jess said the other night, "It looks like Christmas came to Shanghai and threw up everywhere." I noticed a couple weeks ago that the Shanghainese clerks at my local convenient store had started to wear Santa hats. If you're wondering how strange of a sight this is, picture a Chinese person dressed like an ultra-orthodox Jew. Well, the Santa hats are just slightly less weird than that. Then a few nights ago, I came back to my apartment building after a night of drinking. I walked up to the entrance to my building and in my lobby there were about 30 red and green Christmas plants and two faker than fake Christmas trees. As I walked down this now eerie hallway, I just shook my head in disdain and thought to myself that when it comes to Christmas, the Chinese just don't get it.

In China, for about three weeks now, the most gaudy, phony and ugly holiday decorations have popped up everywhere-- at work, in restaurants and now, in the lobby of my building. From what I've been told, this year, the recognition of Christmas in China is greater than it has ever been. There are fake trees and wreaths everywhere. There are these spooky electronic Santas placed in store fronts that have moving arms and legs. They have lighted signs over entrances to malls that say "Happy Christmas." At my office there is a massive signing board for people to write their holiday wishes to everyone who enters the building. Restaurants in Shanghai offer special Christmas Eve feasts that are special insomuch that the meals are on Christmas Eve and are more expensive than on any other night. Christmas celebration in Shanghai and all over China is at an all-time high.

But Christmas is not even a holiday in mainland China. December 25th is not recognized by the government and there is no day off from work. The extent to which Christmas has gotten "popular" in China does not represent a spike in Christianity, but merely a growing cultural interest. The boom in Christmas celebration stems from a widespread and unhealthy Chinese infatuation with the West. The Chinese see the commercialism and romanticism associated with Christmas in the West, and frankly, the Chinese want in. The urban 20-somethings want to buy gifts for their significant others, wealthy parents see Christmas as a way to shower their children with presents, and everyone wants to use the day as an excuse to feast.
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Now, as Christmas is peaking in popularity in China, there is a growing number of Chinese who resent the celebration of the holiday. And the backlash has not come from the elder Chinese who remember a time when any acknowledgement of Christmas was against the law. On Friday, a group of China's brightest graduate students posted an open letter on the internet calling on the Chinese to reject the Western holiday and embrace China's own traditions. By Friday, according to sina.com, 43,000 Chinese web users had commented on the letter. The letter stated:

We 10 doctoral students from different universities and research institutes solemnly call on our countrymen to be cautious about Christmas, to wake from their collective cultural coma and give Chinese culture the dominant role...Western culture has been changing from a breeze and a drizzle into a wild wind and a heavy storm. This is vividly embodied in the rising popularity of Christmas.

The authors claim that the Chinese are diving head first into Christmas festivities without any knowledge of how the holiday originated nor what it stands for. The PhD students also criticize the government for allowing the spreading of Christmas within mainland China and not effectively maintaining Chinese traditions.

The debate over Christmas in China is symptomatic of a much greater issue. The Chinese own one of the richest and most ancient cultures in the world. Sadly, with the opening of China's economy to the Western world, China has left itself open to a Westernization of its culture. The Chinese are struggling with striking a balance between the Western ideals of consumerism and the Chinese traditions of secularism and anti-commercialism. Christmas is testing China's value system. And as I walk around Shanghai, China's commercial capital, it is clear which value system is winning out. China is enamored with the ways of the West and while some resent the Western influence in China, for now, Christmas is here to stay.

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