Chinese Christmas

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This was our first time in a non Christmas celebrating country and it was very odd. Christmas is noticed in China, shops are decorated with Christmas trees and tinsel although no mention of the Christmas story or any Christian links is made, it is noticed a bit by Students and young people who will often give each other presents, especially a special boy or girl, the Chinese government has officially declared the sending of Christmas cards to be a waste of resources although the are available if you look for them. For most Chinese Christmas day is a normal working day, this year the Government has declared an official day off on 1st of January so for the first time the Chinese will get the calendar new year off as well as Chinese new year. We went to see the Christmas celebration at the Church which was packed out, when we arrived at 8:00 for a service that had started at seven the large room was totally packed with Chinese singing Christmas songs in Chinese, performing a Christmas play which for some reason had creatures, later identified as sheep, in sparkling green outfits in it. Quite Christmassy but also very confusing.

In the evening we had turkey at the big western hotel although the lack of roast vegetables was a little disappointing. The school Hida kai works for had a Christmas/New years festival with various bits of singing and folk dancing very like a school talent contest except with less rock bands and more dancing. I was surprised to see some of the teachers taking part, extracts from a Beijing opera done by one of the teachers was pretty good. The general standard was about the same as a school talent contest.

We where also invited to the staff New years party, this followed the standard pattern of a Chinese celebratory dinner, it seems a number of these are given by most Chinese employers for their workforce throughout the year. They are very splendid affairs with many many dishes, (see pic) more than really possible to eat much beer is also served in small glasses and guests are expected to toast each other by downing the glass to the shouts of Gambei. Normally as foreigners we are expected to do a lot of this but as we where all on the same table we only had to do it when the senior figures in the university visited our table. We enjoyed wandering around the hotel which had an extensive collection of fish in tanks waiting to be eaten. After the meal we went for the dreaded Karaoke. Karaoke is very popular in China, unfortunately popular songs in China are dirge like ballads going on for a long time lamenting something or other. Listening to these being sung usually badly by somewhat drunk men is not much fun. Even worse one the meal is over all alcohol stops so you do not have the opportunity to catch up with the singers a point where the effects are anesthetised. We threw in the towel at 9:30 although the party apparently ended by 10:00.

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Photos

Speeches
Speeches being made by important peaople from our collage, it was mostly in chinese so we clapped when everyone else did

Food Glorious food
so much food they had to pile the dishes on top of one another