Langfang, Hebei "Bans" Christmas

[NinjaTurtle]

https://www.newsweek.com/war-christmas-china-city-cancels-1262318

 

A Chinese city has reportedly banned Christmas sales and decoration in hopes of winning an award for model cities.

The Urban Management Bureau of Langfang, a city of more than four million people located in the northern Hebei province of China, issued a notice Sunday restricting businesses from selling Christmas trees, displaying Christmas lights, hosting outdoor performances or promoting holiday-themed sales, according to the ruling Communist Party's Global Times newspaper. Santa Claus costumes, traditional Chinese Christmas apples and other themed products were also allegedly outlawed.

 

The bureau will reportedly enforce the measures by sending out inspectors from December 23 to 25, ensuring that any public gatherings for religious celebrations were reported to authorities. The official organ cited an unnamed bureau employee as saying that the moves were not intended to suppress the Christmas spirit, but instead designed to help Langfang pass an annual "National Civilized Cities" competition.

 

(cont.)

 

[Alex_Hart]

I don't think this is possible in Hangzhou. Sometimes, I feel like there is more Christmas stuff here than back in NYC. The local malls all have ginormous trees, all the stores are playing Christmas music, the bakery chains all have Christmas decorations up and the schools all seem to have Christmas events. The other day when I went to the Xili Center mall, I must have seen 100-200 kids doing Christmas activities with a horde of cellphone-toting parents taking pictures next to them. 

[NinjaTurtle]

I remember a couple of years ago the government put out an edict that no shops or restaurants were to have Christmas decorations. Everyone in Shanghai completely ignored the edict.

[anonymoose]

I wish they'd do that in the UK too. Especially ban the Christmas music and shit Christmas television. Get on with Brexit instead.

[Alex_Hart]

14 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

I remember a couple of years ago the government put out an edict that no shops or restaurants were to have Christmas decorations. Everyone in Shanghai completely ignored the edict.

Westernization with Chinese characteristics!

 

There seems to be an extreme concern among government figures in China over these celebrations/decorations because they show the westernization of Chinese society, but I doubt whether any of these can be divorced from simple fads that seem an inherent part of capitalism (like ankle-length coats from Canada Goose [last year, popular even here in subtropical China!] and sprouts hairpins). These celebrations, whether Christmas or weddings or even an American/Canadian Thanksgiving (turkey was hot in Hangzhou this year for Thanksgiving), have been totally stripped of their original meaning and imported as one other way to look hip, cool, rich, whatever, one more way for people to get you to buy stuff you don't really need. I would be interested in someone going around asking the people taking pictures of the Christmas trees or the owners of shops with Christmas decorations, "what is Christmas?" I suspect many would have no idea beyond it being some "western holiday." I wonder if the government initiatives to stamp down on these events serve any point at all except to make the government feel like it's doing something, anything to "fight back." 

 

This is tangential and yet I hope still relevant, but I recall going to my first "Chinese wedding" and being absolutely gobsmacked that it was almost exactly the same as a modern American-Christian wedding, just minus the priest and the crucifixes. The white dress, separating guests out by whether they came for the bride or groom, the father walking the bride down the aisle, an officiant/host giving a speech remarkably similar to what you'd hear at a Christian wedding, bridesmaids and a best man, the vows, the bouquet and then rice throwing.

 

Baffled (I had been expecting red dresses and whatnot), I asked the bride if she was Christian. Nope. I asked how she chose to celebrate this sort of wedding and she said it looked cool and everyone was doing it. I commented on the similarity with many Christian traditions (the white dress for purity, the rice throwing for fertility, yada yada) and she just shrugged - couldn't care less what it meant. Her father (a devout nationalist) had originally been mildly upset because the local government had encouraged "Chinese weddings" rather than "western weddings" (odd for me then, newly arrived in China and a westerner but not a Christian, to think of this as being anything but Christian) but the bride was totally ignorant of any Christian symbolism at all. It was just "cool." The government saw creeping westernization, she saw a blogger with cool pictures. I've now been to a dozen Chinese weddings and almost all of them were the same.

 

My girlfriend's cousin does bridal planning, definitely "western with Chinese characteristics," and I now see the insane profit margins. Many middle/upper-class brides in Zhejiang do two weddings, one traditional (especially if the family is originally from a small village) and one 'western', or one in their hometown and one in the big city, or one at the groom's hometown and one at the bride's. This often means two or even three dresses, car rentals (everyone here rents Mercedes and BMWs for weddings; not sure if this is nationwide?), etc.

 

Oddly, I had always presumed I would get married for tax purposes or whatever. Why would I ever waste money on what amounts to nonsense for those of us who are not religious? But now that I have a longterm Chinese girlfriend, her family is discussing our wedding (regardless of whether or not we're ready or want to be married!) and it sounds remarkably like the ceremonies that I disavowed as a combatant atheist back in high school, or as a philosophy/political science major in college toting around my copy of Das Kapital. I've spoken up on the matter several times, "Darnit, I am not a Christian! I won't do it this way! This is a Christian wedding! I refuse! I have principles!" only to be patted on the head. I called attention to my girlfriend's father and his party membership and argued that this is clearly contrary to Chinese socialism (perhaps too obvious a ploy), but was told it has little to do with me but more to do with her parents' face 面子. It's a way to show off and to get 红包. Personally, I have no doubt that it will be gone in 20 years and a new fad will be here. Perhaps a Korean wedding or a Jewish wedding, maybe Chinese weddings will be hip once again.

 

Maybe Christmas will just bleed into 过年 or maybe they'll remain separate to allow for two shopping holidays, like how we now have 双十一 and 双十二, much like how we added Cyber Monday to our Black Fridays back home. But this preoccupation with westernization seems misplaced. When I first came, I also worried about this seeming all consuming westernization going on, but it's without any sort of foundation other than consumerism. If the government really would like to combat westernization, perhaps a better place would be to combat the rampant consumerism that is desperately searching for every new holiday possible. 

[Bibu]

@Alex_Hart  wonderful observation!  Could be one kind of global convergence in goodwill, LOL. Oriental goes west and CAP , west goes oriental and Social.....

 

I guess the true classic Chinese value left till today is Mandarin, food and the books for 3000 years that  nobody read  today, for an average Chinese...

[stapler]

I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any Christmas decorations, displays, etc in China. Same for Western style weddings. 

[ChTTay]

@stapler

 

Beijing malls are all full of Christmas stuff. Several years ago Yinchuan was the same. 

 

These days small restaurants even put the odd decoration up

[NinjaTurtle]

10 hours ago, Alex_Hart said:

But now that I have a longterm Chinese girlfriend, her family is discussing our wedding (regardless of whether or not we're ready or want to be married!)

 

What does your girlfriend have to say about all of this?

[Alex_Hart]

10 hours ago, Bibu said:

wonderful observation!  Could be one kind of global convergence in goodwill, LOL. Oriental goes west and CAP , west goes oriental and Social.....

  

I guess the true classic Chinese value left till today is Mandarin, food and the books for 3000 years that  nobody read  today, for an average Chinese...

Not sure I'd take it that far! I mean, China is not socialist in any meaningful way anymore, but I don't think Chinese culture/values are gone; they're being commodified like in the rest of the world. This is pretty standard in every capitalist economy. I had a long conversation about this with one of my professors who studies traditional Chinese gardens 中国古典园林 and spatial analysis 空间分析. He said most of the current students are studying "western" garden design and I expressed my disappointment at the possible loss of Chinese gardens, but he thought this was a temporary trend. He said Chinese gardens are coming back in vogue with banks and the like designing their courtyards or front lawn on Chinese garden ideas, and that now rich people (who were the first to adopt western garden design and architecture) are returning to Chinese architecture/gardens. Similarly, 10 years ago, all the most expensive residential buildings being built in Hangzhou were "western style" (called MixC), but the current ones being built are "Chinese" (Phoenix Gardens; 200,000 元 per square meter for anybody interested!).

8 hours ago, stapler said:

I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any Christmas decorations, displays, etc in China. Same for Western style weddings. 

 

What ChTTay said; the malls are stuffed with Christmas cheer. Lots of trees, tinsel, wreaths, sleighs, Santas and reindeer. I'll try to take some pictures the next time I pass by. I haven't noticed restaurants with many decorations as ChTTay mentions, but the "chain bakeries" seem to have a lot of them. This is mostly Dr. Bread, BreadTalk and Casa Miel here - not sure if these are local or nationwide but they seem to be on every street nowadays. 

 

1 hour ago, NinjaTurtle said:

What does your girlfriend have to say about all of this?

That wasn't the point of my post! ? It was about the temporary nature of these "westernization" fads, of the government's kneejerk response to the symptom rather than the disease, to the corrosive effects of capital, for the need of wholesale societal reform rather than empty sloganeering! Agh, shouldn't have gone on that tangent, should have just gotten to the point... 

Spoiler

To keep this from becoming the topic, I'll throw it in spoilers. The conversation goes something like this:

Cousin: So when are you getting married?
Mom: Soon I hope, then time for kids.

Dad: Quit school. Marry. Get a job. Buy a house.

Aunt: Oh maybe you should do it during 端午节! Everyone will be back then!

Uncle: Hahahahahaha 干杯干杯 hahaha! 

Another cousin: You're already both so old (I am 25)! I was already pregnant when I was your age!

Random man at the next table speaking to me in 方言 : ?????

All parties look at me. I look at my girlfriend, who looks at some random spot on the wall, bends to tie her shoe, maybe finds a piece of lint to play with or puts her face down into a bowl of rice while studiously ignoring my desperate plea for help.

Me: Girlfri-...?

Girlfriend chewing. Silence as the family continues its attack.

 

1

 

[889]

"It's a way to show off and to get 红包."

 

A reminder that however Westernized those weddings seem, toasters will never substitute for hard cash.