Christmas in Canal Town is low-key. There are a few tacky trees in cafes and shopping malls, a few Santas stickered to doors and windows. There’s no reason the festival should be celebrated here, of course. I just find it sad that the only elements of Christmas on public display are the plastic ephemera.
The local church does make a big deal of it. Back in September, they issued a call for volunteers to take part in the Christmas Eve performance. Christmas Eve being Sunday this year, they’ll have the usual morning services, then lunch (steamed buns and soy milk), then an afternoon activity of some sort, then the Christmas Eve extravaganza, to which they’re encouraging everyone to invite their friends and family. They’re especially excited to celebrate this year, after three years in which it was not permitted due to Covid restrictions.
Christmas Eve has traditionally been a big event for churches in China. In Chinese, the day is called 平安夜 (píng ān yè), “night of peace”. When I lived in Xi’an and later in Beijing, a lot of students, regardless of religion, would buy cellophane-wrapped toffee apples on Christmas Eve, because the word 苹果 (píng guŏ), apple, includes a homophone for “peace”. There were huge crowds at the big official churches, both Catholic and Protestant; crowds so big that streets were jammed and you might wait hours for the bus home.
On campus, the only sign of anything Christmassy is a few Santa hat stickers and a tabletop Christmas tree in the cafe-bar run by the Business School. Nationally, there has been a clampdown on Christmas celebrations and associated festive paraphernalia over the last six or seven years, part of the drive to reduce foreign influence. Many English teachers used to hold Christmas parties or special events for students around this time of year, but this has become increasingly frowned upon. I remember chatting with a teacher friend in Beijing some years ago. She and her colleagues wanted to hold a Christmas party for their students, and as such events were being increasingly policed, submitted an application through the Student Events Committee with a description of the activities they had planned. One game involved two teams, one team wearing Santa hats and the other wearing reindeer antler headbands. They were told that the Santa hats were OK, but they couldn’t have the reindeer antlers because they were “too religious”. We’re still scratching our heads over that one.
I had wondered whether our campus might be different, because it is technically an International Campus, with a significant number of students from Italy and other European countries, but it appears not. December 25th is a normal teaching day, the beginning of the last week of this semester, so I and my colleagues will be administering final speaking tests for our freshmen that day.
The campus is holding a New Year gala this evening, though, the Friday before Christmas. In the afternoon, there was a “Chinese culture fair” in the square by the clock tower, with traditional sweets and snacks like 糖葫芦 (táng húlu), which was one of my favourites in Xi’an and Beijing - haw berries or chunks of other fruit, skewered and dipped in sugar syrup that in the cold winter air quickly crystallises into a sweet crunchy shell around the sour fruit. That stall even had some candied apples for sale, though I don’t think anyone was touting them as Christmas Eve apples.
In the afternoon, there was also a giveaway of large carp trawled from the campus lake. They’ve been draining the lake for days, bringing the water level down to make it easier to catch the fish. The grounds staff were then wading out with a large net and dragging it back full of fish. Some of them were huge, easily two feet long. We were all given a voucher, valid for one fish, but it seems they caught fewer than expected so there weren’t quite enough to go around. That was fine by me. I’m not one to turn down free food, but I didn’t fancy having to gut a giant fish in my tiny kitchen.
My friends and I will have our own little Christmas celebration, sans carp. We’re planning a bring-and-share dinner on Christmas Eve, with roast pork and mulled wine and some treats from home. One friend will bring mashed potatoes, another his signature blueberry pie. A dozen or so people crammed into my little apartment, with not quite enough chairs and not quite enough crockery, but full of warmth and the smell of cinnamon. It’ll be especially meaningful after last year, when most of us were in bed with Covid at that point.
These far-from-home celebrations with odd assortments of friends will always hold special memories. In Xi’an, in a time and place with many more foreigners than there are now, we used to book out an entire restaurant for a nice meal out. In Beijing, there would often be a kind family who invited waifs and strays like myself to join them for their turkey and homemade mince pies. I remember fondly breakfast mimosas with other friends, and that time someone bought a poinsettia plant as a gift only for it to freeze and die in the ten minutes’ walk between two apartments, and singing Christmas carols together after lunch.
It’s also allowed me to learn new skills. I’d never have made my own mincemeat in the UK, where I can buy a big jar of it in the supermarket. Here, year after year I’ve grated apples and chopped raisins until my hands ached, sometimes adding Chinese red dates to the mix, splashing in a generous measure of Johnny Walker then letting the mixture mature for a few weeks before baking it into pies.
Christmas in China has also given the special joy of receiving parcels of goodies from home. You can almost smell the love as you slit the tape open and see the chocolates and homemade Christmas cake nestled inside. Some years, my parents would smuggle a whisky miniature in the box, until that time it got confiscated by a customs official in Belfast and the rest of the battered box got returned to them weeks later.
These are memories that I will treasure. But I have to admit I’ll be looking forward to celebrating back home with my family next year. To giving gifts that I’ve held in my hands and wrapped myself, rather than bought blind on Amazon. To smelling the free fragrance of pine needles. To putting another log on the fire. To playing games with my nieces and nephews. To sharing in the cleaning and cooking and eating and laughing.
Meanwhile, I’m waiting for a delivery of imported cheese from Taobao and trying not to think about those final speaking exams.
Merry Christmas, wherever you are!
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