Raymond Zhou

Christmas in the Chinese style

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-24 07:38

In the United States, the conservatives and the liberals are constantly fighting over something: the war in Iraq, abortion rights, gun control, tax policy, etc. This time of the year, they have picked a topic that would surely baffle us Chinese - the Christmas holiday itself.

One group claims that Christmas is a Christian holiday and the government, being constitutionally separate from religion, should not promote it. Specifically it should not endorse religious displays. And even the holiday cards sent out by the US President do not contain the word "Christmas" any more. What if the recipient celebrates Kwanza or Hannuka, they figure?

The other charges that there is a "war on Christmas," and gets ready to defend the holiday against "the campaign of fear, intimidation, and disinformation" from the Left.

I have no intention to dip my toe into this puddle, though it is tempting. I will therefore just recount my own experience.

I did not know Christmas was a religious holiday until several years into my stay in the US. Like many of my countrymen, I became aware of it on a college campus in the early days of China's reform era. We just thought it was cool to have parties and send out greetings cards. We recorded festive songs off a popular US radio station, though nobody could make out the lyrics.

Just when the religious association of December 25 dawned on me, I committed another faux pas: I enthused about it in front of a Christian friend of mine. It turned out that not all kinds of Christian celebrate the holiday after all. I did only mean to be friendly, but I was instantly put down for my clumsiness in misinterpreting the significance of this custom.

However, I did not let that dampen my zeal. I still love the parties, the elaborate home decorations, (which make driving through a residential area pure joy), the trees (though I have some reservations on environmental grounds), and above all, the carols (yes, better than karaoke).

From a fundamentalist point of view, I love Christmas for mostly the wrong reasons. But pagan symbols or not, they have the magic power to transport me into the winter wonderland of a childhood fantasy. And I suspect that many Chinese - in China and the US - take to this holiday in the same secular spirit. We do not mind that it is rooted in religion; we just welcome the jovial mood created by an imaginary fat old guy that vaguely resembles Buddha, who has the capacity to boost sales of every store under the sun.

Which is why the business world is even crazier about Christmas than any individual, whatever religious faith one may have. Commercialization is obviously a driving force behind its popularity in China. And you cannot really fault us for ignoring its religious origin. No offence to believers, if a child is to choose between a symbol of the nativity scene and a string of light bulbs, the latter will probably win.

We have such a weakness for lights and baubles that, instead of taking them down after New Year's Day, we often leave them up all year round. And this may puzzle foreign tourists or first-time expats. If you walk around some commercial streets in a big Chinese city, it is always sparkling with a Christmas-like atmosphere. And we sing "Jingle Bells" even during summer because, not knowing better, we just treat it as another American pop song.

The purists might be annoyed. In the US, if you do not remove your outdoor Christmas lights by January 10th, the residential committee would slap you with a fine.

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. We tend to interpret Christmas as the Western equivalent of China's biggest holiday, otherwise known as the Spring Festival. As a matter of fact, they have a lot in common: both occasions call for family reunions, gift-giving, and most importantly, being nice and charitable to people who are less fortunate.

For me, this is the essence of Christmas - to be nice to those around you, even those you do not know, and to be helpful if you can. The rest is bells and whistles, literally.

You do not have to use a lunar calendar to celebrate Chinese New Year so in my opinion you do not therefore have to be a Christian to enjoy Christmas.

E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/24/2005 page4)