The Chinese Don't Understand Christmas

The time has come for the first blog of the new year! Whoop! I was hoping to make this blog post as timely as possible, but my laziness has put an effective end to that... anyways, without further ado, here is a quick summary of Christmas in Beijing!

China has never really been a religious country, or at least not to the same degree as so many Western nations are. Buddhism grew into the religion it is today in large part because of the strong support it received from the Chinese Emperors, but it never swept the nation to the degree Christianity did in Europe (less than 1/5 of the nation considers itself Buddhist today). Both Confucianism and Taoism have strong histories in the nation, but most consider these 'schools of thought' as opposed to actual religions. And the rise of Communism certainly did plenty to hamper the practice of religion. Religion just isn't a popular thing here. You can imagine my surprise then when I discovered that the Chinese seemed more obsessed and excited about the arrival of Christmas than I was.

The Chinese have absolutely no idea what Christmas is all about. They have no idea it has anything to do with Christianity. This is the very definition of an export holiday: the Chinese have taken the commercialized portions of the holiday and exploited it even further in their attempt to 1.) be more Westernized and 2.) make more money off the allure of acting Western. One couldn't go anywhere without seeing pictures of Santa Claus hanging up on the walls and classic Christmas carols dubbed over in Chinese. People were wishing me Merry Christmas on December 1st. There was too much Christmas spirit for its own good, and yet (excuse the cliche) no one knew the true meaning of it. The truth is, I became actively annoyed at the way the Chinese were so obsessive about something they knew nothing about. When I told my class that not everybody in America celebrates Christmas, I was greeted with looks of shock (both from the students and fellow Chinese teachers). I went on to tell them that only Christians celebrate the holiday, and they grew even more confused. I'm not one to prostelitize so I didn't go into any details with the children, but seriously, if Christmas is going to be shoved down the nation's throat then people should at least be somewhat informed about what they hell they're celebrating!

My family came to visit me during Christmas, and for Christmas Eve we went with several friends to an all you can eat/drink dinner at the Marriott hotel. At the door we were all given whistles and noisemakers. Girls were walking around with party hats and light-up devil horns. The place looked like it was celebrating New Year's, which was probably because the Chinese view Christmas more in keeping with a New Year's celebration than a religious holiday. Don't get me wrong, I got drunk and had a lot of fun, but its not Christmas!

When we finished our meal we headed out to attend midnight mass, but the place was so packed it was impossible to get near the entrance, let alone inside. I had heard that it was popular for the Chinese to go to church just to check out what the actual meaning of Christmas was all about, and I actually got tickets in advance to 'guarantee' us a spot, but apparently that wasn't enough. It's great that it was so full, but how many of those people were there for actual religious reasons? My guess would be about half, with the other half crowding into the church just to be able to say they were a part of the Christmas celebration. That left many people who actually celebrated the holiday correctly out in the cold...

Anyways, I'll stop this rant now and leave you all with a video of my favorite class dancing to Christmas carols- enjoy!