Well today is December 25, 2015 and officially my first Christmas spent in China. Sitting here with my girlfriend and eating Ferrero Rocher while writing this. Our plans for the day are simple, we are going to pick up my coat from the dry cleaners and out to eat with a few foreign teachers I know. It's my first Christmas so far from family so it is a bit strange. Christmas here in China is really just a buying holiday. Actually it seems in anything other than small villages all chinese holidays are just commercial. They don't really have the big celebrations I expected. They do a parade for spring festival and small towns get lively during various festivals.
If you are in a bigger city it seems that holidays are reduced to an opportunity to shop. My girlfriend has said the pressure of modern society and the stress is causes for young people has caused many to dislike or even hate all Chinese holidays. The villages are shrinking as students travel away for school and stay in larger cities, and those larger cities are so focused on consumerism that they have lost track of any part of Chinese culture other than shoving people out of the way because they always need to be first. The Chinese have a huge potential to be a culture filled society that other countries look up to, but the rush to match other countries has resulted in a loss of traditional values, a forgptten cultural heritage, and a society where being rude and obnoxious is covered up by the concept of face.
Its sad as a foreigner living in China to see that the development of chinese culture is killing every good and unique thing about chinese culture and leaving only the bad. To anyone that reads this I reccomend that you visit China, I reccomend you do it soon. I also say you should visit smaller towns and villages because that where the real China is, not the lousy North American knockoff that the larger cities are.
I also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Joshua Son
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