It’s beginning to feel a lot like some sort of holiday.

It’s funny to be in a country that doesn’t actively celebrate Christmas but has taken up some of it’s elements here and there. In Loudong they signs of Christmas are few. There is no snow, but it is nippy. I don’t get time off for Christmas or anything for that matter until Chinese New Year. I have been barraged with Musaky versions of Christmas carols in certain places, like, oddly enough, the stationary store. Sometimes I can barely tell that things are intended to be in the Christmas spirit. For example we went to a Hot springs hotel last weekend and the whole place was covered in Christmas lights. It didn’t occur to me that they were for Christmas until we went to the lobby and saw a tree. Even then I didn’t notice. It took my housemate commenting on how lovely their Christmas decorations were to understand what was going on.
Taipei is a different story. It is always more in the swing of Western things than my little town and you could tell this weekend. Lots of places had Christmas trees up inside. Some were English schools, where it makes more sense, but some were just random places. The city still doesn’t have that Christmas feeling and some of it’s attempts come out strangely. Colin and I got on a bus the other day just as it lurched from it’s stop. As I fell into a seat I thought, “who is the crazy person driving this bus?” Turns out, the crazy person was Santa or at least a thin bus driver dressed as such. Again, throughout the day I ran across Christmas music and stores selling a variety of plastic trees. Then when it was time to go home the cashiers at the 7-11 express in the train station were all wearing Santa hats.
I wonder what most people do for Christmas. It seems obvious that people recognize it from the signs listed above, but when the day comes then what? This time its on the weekend, but how about when its not. No time to sit with the family and open presents on Christmas morning if you have school and work. It’s certainly not a religious holiday as the translation into Chinese is Santa Day. I’m pretty sure people don’t eat a Christmas dinner, so what do they do? Just celebrate it at school in the English classroom with the foreign teacher? That’s what I suspect.