Christmas in China

If you think capitalism has blinged up Christmas, you should see what the Communists are doing to it. At this time of year, Chinese cities are dressed up like one big Oxford Street, but with lights that put London’s in the shade. Christmas Eve has become the biggest shopping day of the year. At the school where I taught last year, every classroom had at least three Christmas trees: one outside the door, one inside the door and one at the back. Tinsel ran up staircases, fake snow adorned all the windows. The Chinese have even developed their own Christmas traditions: revellers give each other elaborately packaged apples, and Father Christmas is always pictured playing the saxophone.

It’s quite impressive for a country where the public celebration of Christmas has been an offence since 1949. While this is clearly a prohibition honoured more in the breach than the observance, as far as festive tat is concerned, the proliferation of plastic Santas ought not to obscure the very real anxieties the festivities continue to cause the Communist party. Officially, its problem is with a bonanza of unprincipled western garishness distracting young Chinese from the Confucian delights of Chinese festivals. In reality, they’re worried that too many people are genuinely celebrating the birth of Christ.

So far, the problem is containable. Many young Chinese are not even aware that it’s a religious celebration; indeed, my students had only the haziest conception of who Christ actually is. I was impressed by their knowledge of stockings, Christmas food and the lyrics to ‘Jingle Bells’ but amazed by their total ignorance of what it was all in aid of. But the way things are going, they might find out.