Shengdan Kuaile

Christmas is much more popular in China than I thought it would be. Carols are playing everywhere. Christmas decorations are on display everywhere. Life-size, dancing, robotic Santas are giving kids nightmares… everywhere. The holiday is still kind of new here, though, and no traditions have really been established. Christmas parties are a rarity. Nobody is expected to exchange gifts. Most people don’t even get the day off. I think they just like to recognize Christmas in an attempt to be more “mainstream.” The younger generations will eventually turn it into something bigger once they have their own families.

Until then, it’s business as usual. And I expected today to feel less like Christmas and more like another day of teaching. Which it did. But when I stood in front of the first group of students and said, “Okay, let’s sing,” to start class like we do every every every day, instead of singing “Hello, How Are You,” they unexpectedly started singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Then the school gave me a present: a set of combs (as strange as it sounds, Changzhou is actually famous for its combs).

Last night, I also went out for a French dinner with other foreigners. It was nice to be somewhere where we could eat turkey, drink wine, and share stories about how we usually celebrated Christmas. It’s a little hard to be away from home for the first time during the holidays and not being able to spend it with my family, but, thanks to a package my parents sent me, I still got to eat a couple chocolate-covered marshmallow Santas. And that’s the true spirit of Christmas.

25 December 2008 | China, Teaching | Comments | Home
tags: holidays

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