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Christmas - the Chinese way
Lei • 27.Dezember, 2007 @ 03:16 • Abgelegt unter: Forschung und Entwicklung
“Merry Christmas!” A crowd of people with red Santa hats rushed through the restaurant, blowing paper whistles and hitting people in the restaurant with air-filled plastic hammers. “Ouch!” the few foreigners in the restaurant fell victims to the relentless hammers and looked more than disconcerted by this Chinese way of X’mas. In the background children are screaming “Jingle Bell” happily through the stereo. The guests all got excited about this new crazy atmosphere and had big smiles on the face.
Next door, a woman standing outside of the grocery store was yelling into her cell phone: “No, they don’t have those Santa Claus chocolate any more!! What else can we do?” Several meters away, a street vender was buried in Santa Claus balloons of different sizes and a sea of flowers. He was busy selling and telling the other customers that he’s only there for one day.
Everywhere I go, there’s X’mas music and salespeople or waiters in Santa hats or Santa suits. If you call my home phone, you’ll hear Jingle Bell as opposed to a normal ring tone. China is celebrating X’mas in its own way: almost purely commercial. Very few people know the meaning behind it, and ultimately nobody really cares. For many people, it’s fun, it’s new, and it’s something western and festive. Why not? For street vendors and entrepreneurs, it’s another great opportunity to make money; and in the big scheme of things, it boosts the economy!
On the other hand, what I found interesting was that almost all the Chinese associates at Bosch I talked to told me “it’s not our festival, why should we celebrate?”, when I asked them what they do on X’mas. Perhaps people who have western contacts have better understanding of the culture and therefore, for them, the kind of mystery and curiosity exists no more. On the other hand, they can appreciate the cultural differences more and distance themselves from anything not belonging to their own culture but with due respect to the others.
