Christmas
Between filling out grad school applications, hosting a good friend as part of his round-the-world tour, and preparing to move to a new apartment I haven't had much time to contribute to this space. 对ä¸èµ·!
Christmas is four days away, and for the second year in a row I'll be spending it here in China. Although in a perfect world I'd be able to visit my family in California the combination of work responsibilities, financial restraints, and other logistical hurdles prevent that from happening this year.
Nonetheless my friends in Kunming do a fine job acting in loco familias. The city's foreign population is large enough that we're able to obtain a pre-cooked turkey from a cafe, something that I imagine might arouse the envy of my fellow laowai in other parts of China. I myself am fairly suibian about the contents of Christmas dinner- growing up as a Noritalerican infused me with disparate culinary influences- but my British and Australian friends seem to think Christmas won't be Christmas without the bird. And who am I to complain? Turkey is good. Maybe next year we can engineer a Turducken.
China remains an officially atheist country yet has embraced the commercial side of Christmas, something that would make advertising executives proud around the world. Christmas decorations have appeared everywhere in town and you can't walk into a supermarket without hearing a constant stream of English-language Christmas music. Proportionally few Chinese worship Christ or are even aware of what conventional Christmas traditions are, yet culturally they appear very comfortable with the crass commercialism that characterizes the holiday.
Mind you I'm not complaining. As a non-Christian myself I see Christmas as a pagan festival celebrating the end of the year, the presence of family, and other such sentimental milestones. That the Chinese have appropriated the holiday is a positive, not a negative, development.
To my readers I'd like to wish a 圣诞节快ä¹, a Merry Christmas, and other holiday greetings.
December 21st, 2009 - 15:49
God Jul, and whatever the Italian version may be. And a Merry Christmas to your American half, too.
My colleagues and I are talking about hotpot for Christmas lunch. I think hotpot is a good Christmas meal, at least so long as we’re stuck on this strange, heathen, northern side of the equator. One of these years I will have to get myself and the Mrs to somewhere civilised and summery for Christmas.
December 24th, 2009 - 16:50
Merry Christmas!:-)