RECAP: Christmas

A quick note on how I spent Christmas 2005…

The Chinese don’t celebrate Christmas so in many ways it was just another day. That said, they are beginning to latch onto the commercial possibilities of the holiday, with lots of Santa figures, tinsel, decorations etc all over the place. Of course there are no religious icons about but the Chinese do seem to worship Santa with religious fervour.

Being a multicultural office we'd decorated with a tree, wreath, fairy lights, tinsel etc. The Chinese staff seemed to really get into it - I'm not sure whether this was for our benefit (ie. whether they believed it was very important to us) or whether it was because they really enjoyed the chance to celebrate a 'Western' holiday. Perhaps it was a combination of both. We also had a Kris Kringle and a Christmas party, both with surprise visits from Santa.

At the Christmas party the Australians on the team really got into the the spirit of Christmas with a surprise performance of Carols. Please note we did this for the benefit of our Chinese colleagues and not for personal enjoyment. The Chinese thought it was just fantastic and we caught them completely off guard. The fact that we'd kept such a good secret (in a country where there really are no secrets) distracted somewhat from our terrible singing.

Christmas is becoming an excuse for a party, and the Chinese can party with the best of them. I spent the day of Christmas Eve just wandering around the Chongqing city centre enjoying the atmosphere. The city was packed with people, a lot of families and a lot of children. There were vendors everywhere selling helium balloons, inflatable hammers, Santa hats, silly string and that foamy, aerosol snow. The city was primed to go off that night but unfortunately I had to miss it as I had an evening flight to Beijing.

I met Reggie at the airport (fresh off the plane from Australia) and we made it to our hotel in time for the midnight countdown. Yes, the Chinese count down to midnight on Christmas Eve in the same way we count down on New Year’s Eve. There was quite a ruckus after the countdown with fireworks and balloons but we missed most of the fun as we were checking into the hotel!

After a bit of a lie in on Christmas morning we decided we’d treat ourselves with room service/breakfast in bed which was a huge mistake… rubbery eggs and leathery bacon, anyone? We unwrapped presents before hitting the streets where the sun was shining despite the freezing temperatures. It didn’t snow which was slightly disappointing as neither of us have ever experienced a White Christmas. In fact it didn’t snow at all while we were in Beijing.

We ended up having lunch in the food court of a massive shopping mall (fried dumplings and roti bread) and I asked Reggie whether she ever imagined that she’d be having her Christmas lunch in a food court IN CHINA. I certainly didn’t.

After lunch we headed to the Silk Market for a while, it was actually a great day to go as there were virtually no other foreigners about! The Silk Market is a massive market complex where you can buy just about anything. Reggie was very impressed with my bargaining skills and I was horrified by hers!

For dinner we headed to Beihei Park, a big park in the centre of Beijing. In the middle of the park, on an island in the centre of a lake, is a Fang Shan restaurant aka Imperial Court Food. This is a very fancy restaurant serving the type of food that was presented to the Chinese Emperors. This food was never available to regular people and is now considered gourmet in China. The restaurant itself was quite spectacular with lots of gilded gold and a Chinese-style throne in one little nook. The food was okay though I think the Imperial chefs must have spent more time on presentation than anything, as the food was very beautiful. Our one concession to it being Christmas was a nice bottle of Australian red to accompany our meal.