Well, I for one am still in the Christmas spirit, and though this has very little to do (on the surface) with business consulting in China or the development of rural resources, I really think this is worth a write before the season is totally gone. I had to laugh when I read reports of a group of Chinese scholars who wrote up a paper to discourage Christmas in China.
My personal favorite from the paper they wrote is that Christmas is an encroachment on traditional Chinese holidays by Western "soft power." That makes me wonder who is making, selling, and buying all the Christmas decorations and paraphernalia in the stores in China? I doubt the CIA has some cunning plan to soften up China with Santa beards.
The China Daily reports that ten doctrate students posted a petition on the internet to say no to Christmas. The students see Christmas as a cultural invasion. An invasion by whom, I ask.
This reminds me of the time a police officer in a small village where I was conducting linguistic survey (in my lingo-years) turned to his fellow officer and mumbled in a minority language that I was a linguistic spy, and was analyzing the language so that when the United States attacked China, we could use the minorities against them. Creative. What he did not know is that my colleague was originally from a couple villages over. We had a great laugh in the hotel room that night.
It is the same sort of thing, though. The whole Christmas issue, the linguistic spy accusations, and all the rest are issues of worldview. Just today, first out of politeness, I tried to encourage a taxi driver that China was really developing quite quickly and could well equal the United States in a few years. He kept coming back at me, time and time again, insisting China was backward and impovrished. Ok, whatever, you win. America good; China bad.
I would not think it unhealthy at all if Chinese wanted to shun Christmas. It certainly would not offend me any, or anyone I know, if Chinese wanted to be more "Chinese" and did not want to practice holidays which come from what they perceive as an invading culture. That is not what is happening, though. The problem is that the makers, sellers, and buyers are all Chinese.
And speaking of Christian holidays, since when does buying Santa hats and gawdy decorations for a tree have anything to do with religious freedom? When I read some excerpts of the petition (along with links to many of the original sites) on the Danwei site, I only mourn that the writers of the petition themselves have no idea what Christmas is about.
When my Chinese neighbors asked me to tell them the history and traditions behind Christmas, they were a little confused when I could not tell them anything about Santa Claus. I suppose I could look it up on the internet, Santa's origins that is, but why should I when the real beginning of Christmas, the reason there is any point in celebrating in the first place, is a much older and certainly much more clear story than any we can find of ol' Santa. Christmas in China is simply becoming what it has in the West for so many, an excuse to get off work and party.
Why has this celebration lasted for more than 1,700 years (that is, after the first known celebrations of Jesus's birth in the 3rd century). Is there more to Christmas than the "Old Man of Christmas" and trees? Man, I hope so.
