Email Service Notes 15th December (Celeste)

Christmas is coming. Christmas trees with fabulous decorations are ubiquitous. When darkness falls and the bulbs on these Christmas trees are lighten up, this image always gives people the false sense that we are in some western cities, but not in China. As usual, there are always some critics will show up and post comments to express their worries about the culture invasion.

In my opinion, such kind of worries is unnecessary. For most of the Chinese people, they like Christmas but don’t know a lot about either history or the religious meaning of Christmas. Or more honestly, they don’t care about anything more than the word “Christmas” itself. Most of their understandings regarding Christmas be limited to the similarity between Christmas and Chinese New Year, namely both of them can be understood as a festival of family reunion. Of course, they don’t go home like they do for Chinese New Year, but they find a perfect excuse to meet some friends, then have a dinner or have drink together.

For the businessman, they also like Christmas, but for different reasons. They will decorate the shopping mall with Christmas decorations and play the Christmas music all the day. They do it not because they really like exotic atmosphere, but the Christmas always means that they can sale more products and get more profits.

Edited

Christmas is coming. Christmas trees with fabulous decorations are ubiquitous. When darkness falls and the bulbs/light bulbs/twinkling lights on these Christmas trees are lit up, this image always gives people the false sense that we are in some western cities and not in China. As usual, there are always some critics that will show up and post comments to express their worries about culture invasion.

In my opinion, such kind of worries are unnecessary. For most of the Chinese people, they like Christmas but don’t know a lot about either the history or the religious meaning of Christmas. Or more honestly, they don’t care about anything more than the word “Christmas” itself. Most of their understandings regarding Christmas are limited to the similarity between Christmas and Chinese New Year, namely both of them can be understood as a festival of family reunion. Of course, they don’t go home like they do for Chinese New Year, but they find a perfect excuse to meet some friends, have dinner or have/go for drinks together.

For businessmen/mall owners, they also like Christmas, but for different reasons. They will decorate shopping malls with Christmas decorations and play Christmas music all day/24/7. They do it not because they really like the exotic atmosphere, but Christmas always means that they can sell more products and get/make more profit.