Christmas Day in China

[ruoxuan]

It's not Christmas Day yet. But wherever I go on the streets,I see shops selling Christmas trees and all kinds of delicate decorations, waiters wearing Christmas hats, I hear children singing Christmas songs on broadcast,I get messages of Christmas best wishes from friends.

I just got quite confused again (every year), since when have Chinese begun celebrating Christmas Day? What do these people celebrate it for,the Birth of Christ? But we all know that most of Chinese are not christians,they don't even know the origins of Christmas Day,and they celebrate it for no reason.

I don't celebrate Christmas Day or any other western holidays since neither am I a Christian nor a westerner.anyway I can't get reasonable answers from my friends,some of them think they would like to just take this chance to enjoy themselves regardless of the meanings of the festival ,some of them think I'm an old-fashioned girl,a bigot who doesn't appreciate the spirit of Chinese cultural tolerance and understanding of other cultures (am I?) well,if it is about cultural tolerance and flexibility, why don't we ever celebrate the month of Muharram,or festival of colours in India, or Fiestas Patrias in Mexico?

I really appreciate cultural exchanges and commumnications with all nations,but I don't think this is what it's about.

Back when I was in primary school, we had lectures on the histories of our traditional festivals and what they mean to us Chinese,and how we celebrate them.We were asked to learn them by heart and also asked to remember a list of Western festivals as common sense. The teacher would remind us to plant trees and sweep the tombs for the lost ones we love on Qingming festival. On the 9th of the 9th lunar month we would organize an autumn trip just to swarm to a little mountian nearby.My mom used to stick some kind of plant called zhuyu on our windows saying that it can avoid evilness(we still do this now). It's all part of our fun. yet I hardly see people do these today.

People are celebrating more and more western festivals while ingoring our traditional ones.

Is it part of globalization? Do people in other non-western countries aslo celebarate Christmas?

Am I a bigot on this problem?

[adrianlondon]

I celebrate Christmas and I'm not a Christian. It's just a holiday to me. I'll celebrate any holiday going, if I had the chance. Keep 'em coming!

I hope you had your jiaozi today as it's 冬至.

[Ncao]

why don't we ever celebrate the month of Muharram,or festival of colours in India, or Fiestas Patrias in Mexico?

Because other countries don't celebrate these holidays. I think Christmas is like an international holiday (most countries in the world celebrate it)like New Year. Christmas has become more of a commercial holiday then a religious one .China isn't the only non-Christian country to celebrate it, Thailand does too. And Christmas in China isn't really a big festive holiday as it's in the West anyways.

[Meng Lelan]

Vietnam is doing Christmas too.

Anyway, it may help you to know I'm a Western non-Christian (I belong to a different religion) so I don't celebrate Christmas. I don't see why I should celebrate it just because everyone else seems to be celebrating it. Christmas has no meaning to me at all therefore I treat that day like any ordinary day.

You are not a bigot just because you don''t want to celebrate Christmas. I have Chinese friends in China who feel the same way as you do. So you are not alone. You feel different because it seems like everyone wants to do it but that does not mean you have to participate in something that has no meaning to you. After all, the police aren't going to come arrest me and put me in jail if I don't do Christmas.

Lelan

[Ncao]

Vietnam actually has a number of Catholics (2nd to the Philippines in SE Asia) and Christmas is one the traditions left over from French colonism. Japan and Korea (but also has a number of Christians)are also the other non-Christian Asian countries that celebrate Christmas.

[Ian_Lee]

I am less concerned about Chinese celebrating western holidays like X'mas than Chinese not celebrating traditional holidays on Mainland.

Currently the official holidays in PRC are: Lunar New Year Day (1 day), Spring Festival, Labor Day (First whole week of May), National Day (First whole week of October).

Why doesn't Beijing allow traditional festivals like Mid-Autumn (which are listed as public holidays in Taiwan, HK, Macau and South Korea) or Dragon Boat Festival as public holidays?

When UNESCO accepted Dragon Boat Festival as a Korean cultural heritage and aroused the anger of many Chinese, did they ever think why UN would make such decision? Just think of it: the South Korean government lists it as a public holiday while Chinese government does not. So which country deserves more to preserve such cultural heritage?

IMO the more festivals the better since it would induce domestic consumption. Since X'mas has been packaged more commercially than other non-western festivals like Ramadan, of course the business world loves promoting it.

[Student Zhang]

most of us celebrate Christmas just because we see many people around us do it.All the chinese like holidays.expecially we young people .just few days agoe.some people ask us to keep away from christmas,they believe we should pay more attention to our tradional festivals.they do a research on the internet.60% people agree that we should not take Christmas so seriously,20% think anyone can celebtate Christmas as he likes.

[Quest]

Why doesn't Beijing allow traditional festivals like Mid-Autumn (which are listed as public holidays in Taiwan, HK, Macau and South Korea) or Dragon Boat Festival as public holidays?

破四旧，立四新。要做文明人，请说普通话。

中国没有汉族，只有中华民族。中秋和端午只是汉族传统，不能代表国家。

When UNESCO accepted Dragon Boat Festival as a Korean cultural heritage and aroused the anger of many Chinese, did they ever think why UN would make such decision?

According to wikipedia, 韩国人发明了汉字，儒教，中医，造纸，陶瓷，和印刷等等。只要你争取就可以据为己有。

[Ncao]

中国没有汉族，只有中华民族。中秋和端午只是汉族传统，不能代表国家。

Does all the ethnic groups in China celebrate the Lunar New Year (Spring festival)? I have doubts about the Uighurs,other Muslim groups,and the Russian celebrating it.

According to wikipedia, 韩国人发明了汉字，儒教，中医，造纸，陶瓷，和印刷等等。只要你争取就可以据为己有。

Can you give the link to that ? If the Koreans invented Hanzi then why would they need to invent their own alphabet?

[roddy]

Would be good to see more public holidays scattered around the calendar. China's more than big enough to do this on a provincial or even more local basis if it wanted.

As for Christmas - I've yet to see a Chinese person say 'hmmm, here's an excuse to get everyone together for a big meal . . . but no, I think we should just stay in and watch TV'. Nobody is converting to Christianity for the sake of Christmas, it's not taken seriously at all, and compared to the in-your-face kind of thing it is in the West, it's quite mild. It's an excuse to go out for a meal, for restaurants to offer ridiculously expensive buffets, shops to maybe sell a few more gifts, etc. There might be less observance of other traditional Chinese festivals, but that's a different issue.

Incidentally, does anyone else find the Chinese thing of wanting to stay up till midnight on Christmas Eve to 'see in' Christmas Day, New Year-style, quite bizarre? First time it happened I assumed we'd just stayed out later than usual, then at midnight everyone suddenly stood up and started cheering.

According to wikipedia, 韩国人发明了汉字，儒教，中医，造纸，陶瓷，和印刷等等。只要你争取就可以据为己有。

Well go and edit it back then. You only need to change one character

[SJLongPants]

Hi everybody, I'm new.....

破四旧，立四新。要做文明人，请说普通话。

中国没有汉族，只有中华民族。中秋和端午只是汉族传统，不能代表国家。

Good answer, I was curious myself.

As far as Christmas, my (Han) Chinese wife celebrates it with me as "a western holiday" - not as the birth of Christ. Santa has NOTHING to do with Christ, but he is of good cheer and warm family feelings that help get us out of work and the rat race for a little while; we - for a short moment in time think of others, than ourselves......thats good!

Chinese holidays are very much an important part of our lives, never missed....

[Student Zhang]

most of us celebrate Christmas just because we see many people around us do it.All the chinese like holidays.expecially we young people .just few days agoe.some people ask us to keep away from christmas,they believe we should pay more attention to our tradional festivals.they do a research on the internet.60% people agree that we should not take Christmas so seriously,20% think anyone can celebtate Christmas as he likes.

[Xiao Kui]

since when have Chinese begun celebrating Christmas Day? What do these people celebrate it for,the Birth of Christ? But we all know that most of Chinese are not christians,they don't even know the origins of Christmas Day,and they celebrate it for no reason.

I don't think Chinese are totally ignorant of the origins of Christmas, after all there are an estimated 80-100 million Chinese Protestants in the mainland, and the number is steadily increasing, and most of the growth has occurred via a self-propagating Chinese church, not due to outside western influence.

[geraldc]

If the church got its act together and sorted out all the snags in the calender, then no one would have problem celebrating Xmas as it would just be New Years

If anyone uses the modern calender, then there's no reason why they shouldn't celebrate the birthday of the man who effectively is the starting point of the modern calender. Most people still use AD and BC, and even those who use BCE and CE must have had it explained to them in terms of the birth of Jesus (unless there are some people who believe that the start of the Common Era just happens to coincide with the birth of Jesus.

[billiardsmike]

People are the same everywhere; any excuse for a holiday. Personally, I find the contrasts amusing. Now I have to run around getting pictures before they disappear. You know - things like the WuMei North Pole village display that has a pig in a Santa suit and the 25ft. Carrefour Christmas tree with the red communist star on top.

[wushijiao]

Christmas is absolutely wonderful for the economy. There was probably double the average amount of people out today in Shanghai buying things and waiting in line for restaurants. Most people seemed to be having a lot of fun.

Also, as Ian Lee said, Christmas is great for increasing domestic demand. In a way in reminds me of the Simpsons episode when they celebrate “Love Day”- a day created by corporate interests so that people will buy more stuff.

One thing I noticed this year is the amount of Christmas carols. Many stores around Shanghai had all sorts of Christmas carols in English, including some of the great versions by Nat King Cole. Also, there were little kids making gingerbread houses in the local supermarket. This forced me to say, “中国的圣诞节越来越地道！"

I could see why some Chinese people might feel that the popularity of Christmas is a worrying trend. But I don’t think there is a contradiction between being a patriotic Chinese person and accepting the good aspects of foreign cultures.

It would be nice to resuscitate some of the old Chinese festivals. I think the popularity of Christmas and not celebrating Chinese festivals are two different issues though, with different causes.

[roddy]

Off-topic posts removed.

Santa Claus.

PS Merry Christmas!

[adrianlondon]

Based on my 8am class this morning .... they don't.

I was expecting the format of the class (especally as only 4 people turned up; 3 more than I was expecting!) to be a bit different today. Maybe we could have chatted about Christmas, or holidays, or something slightly relevant. No. We just ploughed on through the text as normal.

I skipped my second class today. And as for tomorrow ...

[self-taught-mba]

Maybe we could have chatted about Christmas, or holidays, or something slightly relevant. No. We just ploughed on through the text as normal.

This surprises you? Merry Christmas!

[wushijiao]

Here's a Washington Post article about the Christmas debate in China:

"...(A) group of graduate students set off a spirited debate here Friday with a crotchety screed condemning Chinese people for their growing tendency to celebrate Christmas.

The students, from such elite institutions as Tsinghua, Peking and People's universities, wrote a weighty-sounding open letter complaining that Christmas is a Christian holiday imported from the West and suggesting that Chinese should stick to the traditions and festivals observed in their own culture.

"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," they wrote in a letter posted Thursday on the government-controlled China Daily Web site."

"Web watchers did a quick survey and found that about 60 percent of those commenting backed the complaints. Although use of the Internet limited the debate to an educated slice of China's 1.3 billion inhabitants, it revealed unease over the penetration of Western culture among the same people who often are most prone to embrace it: urban college graduates and professionals."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/22/AR2006122201445.html