Merry Christmas too all

As I sit writing this entry, I remain woefully behind in packing for a trans-Pacific flight that I’m supposed to be on later today. Actually, I haven’t even started.

This is also my last entry of 2008. January will mark the four year birthday of Go Too Far East (that’s a mid-life crisis in Web years). So I’m going to launch a completely redesigned Web site then. Watch for it!

Another project I have planned for 2009 is to write a book. I know, I know, everyone says they are going to write a book. And while I promise to follow through, I can’t promise it will make the New York Times Best Seller List or that you will like it. But I guarantee it won’t be a typical foreigner-in-a-foreign-land novel.

And now a word on Christmas (particularly, how it’s been commercialized in China):

Christmas is so commercialized these days. That’s no surprise to anyone; Linus made that clear for us in “Charlie Brown Christmas” years ago. But in America, the commercial aspects of the modern holiday and its sacred root are at least wrapped together with a pretty bow that sounds something like this:

“We buy each other expensive gifts (that people in Shenzhen sweatshops make and which will end up disintegrating over one million years in a landfill in someone’s backyard) to demonstrate that on Christmas, God have his us a gift, his son.”

Okay, I know that’s a bit over-the-top, but it illustrates how we’ve successfully combined the commercial and Christian aspects of Christmas. And we all do it. And I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just our own culture’s way of celebrating—even if it is a bit less sustainable that beating drums and dancing around a fire.

But you know what’s happened in China? I saw a huge Christmas tree in front of the Bank of China (the tree was blue by the way). Not with an angel on top. Not with a star on top. But with the Bank of China logo on top. Christmas here is completely misinterpreted—and it’s not the fault of the Chinese. They are only importing what the West has to sell. The buildings and boulevards in Beijing are “decked” just as you would expect them to be in any American city. I was sitting in a buffet last night listening to “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new born king!” Mao would roll over in his grave.

Once again, I’m not saying this is bad. But I do lament a little that commercial-Christmas has become so divorced from Christian-Christmas. Especially the fact that in China, where people have picked up what they perceive to be a bright and colorful holiday not too different from Chinese New Year, I don’t think Christmas’s core values of giving, family, faith, etc., are being accurately translated. If they were, Chinese people might be intrigued by the deeper meaning of Christmas, they might choose to file it away as another tid-bit of Western culture, or they might choose to not observe the holiday at all.

Of course, everyone has the right to celebrate Christmas however they want to. And I don’t think you have to be a Christian or follow the Christian tradition to celebrate it. It’s an ancient Christian holiday, but it’s also a modern Western festival with no shortage of icons completely unrelated to the Christ’s birth such as Santa Claus—though he apparently was at least based on Saint Nicolas. So how about another example: Rudolf, Frosty, Mrs. Clause (not sure if priests were celibate or not in Saint Nick’s day).

However, I guess I am a bit miffed that Bank of China chose to display it’s brandmark on top of a Christmas tree. A bank is one organization that I don’t think represents the core values of Christmas. They also have all my money. Merry Christmas!

For all of your holiday viewing pleasure, here’s the classic Danwei documentary about Chinese people’s perceptions of Christmas.