Attack of the Christmas Man
During my time in China, I have certainly been witness to a number of events that could be described as “strange”. Some could probably be explained away with such catchphrases as “cultural difference”, while others are a little harder to nail down, such as traffic maneuvers that defy the laws of physics. As time goes by, however, such events are usually incorporated into the “oh well, that’s China” section of the brain, tolerated and even accepted as mundane reality.
But then there are those events that just defy explanation, that stupefy the brightest of minds. Simply put, they defy the very boundaries of sanity. These are the times that culture shock cannot explain, when even the most seasoned expats stops to wonder:”OK, who is slipping psychotropic substances into my food?” Well, today I definitely had one of these moments (I’ll be scrutinizing my meals more closely from now on).
It all started with the usual phone call to confirm my continuing role “as foreign jackass who stands around” at a local primary school every Monday afternoon. However, I got a taste of the strangeness to come: they told me that this time, they wanted me to play “Christmas Man” (a superhero I am not aware of, perhaps?). My instructions were to slap on a Santa hat, and speak with a “deep” voice. I guess this was to be expected: Christmas around here is inevitably tied in with celebrating superficial Western culture and speaking English (a really weird phenomenon in itself, but I’ll get to that later). I figured I’d show up, feed them the consumer-friendly version of Christmas (aka Jesus who???), MC some games and then collect my money. If only it were so simple.
When I got to the usual room where the English activities are held, I quickly noticed something strange: there was a rather large Halloween ghoul doll guarding the door. Momentarily confused, I entered the room and was comforted by the sight of the usual Christmas decorations scattered about. But again, I noticed some plastic skulls near the Christmas trees on the desk: what the hell was going on? Why were there Halloween decorations mixed in with the usual Santas and reindeer? As the students crashed into the classroom, I soon got my answer.
It seems that the school had decided to kill several birds with one stone: not content to merely celebrate Christmas, they had thrown in various other Western holidays, most notably Halloween and Mardi Gras. Take any remotely Western holiday symbol, toss it in, and press the “chaos” button.
So here’s the scene: I’m in a room that is decorated with both Christmas and Halloween decorations. The students are wearing a wild assortment of masks and costumes, ranging from Santas to apes and that ghost face from “Scream”. It is announced that we are going to celebrate “Christmas” with games and a costume party (?). Above all this craziness hang some red paper lanterns (I guess Spring Festival gets in there too), and “Wish You a Merry Christmas” scratching its way out of some speakers. Tell me that is not “A Nightmare Before Christmas” drenched in acid.
And so in this holiday twilight zone the afternoon passed, accompanied by my absolute inability to comprehend the scene unfolding around me. “Celebrating Christmas” meant a lot of kids making a lot of noise and some game involving throwing ping pong balls into garbage bins. The activities inevitably got out of hand and the kids took a quick liking to fighting each other and grabbing at my Santa hat. One of the Chinese teachers went around “interviewing” the different Monsters (never bothering to ask the obvious: “why are you dressed as a vampire at a Christmas party?”), and the kids blasted their indecipherable answers into the overloud mike. And all the while the Christmas music droned on. To finish things up, I got it together enough to mutter some convoluted story about Santa coming down the chimney and bad kids getting coal.
Throughout this bad trip I actually managed to snap a few pictures (I originally brought the camera along to document the weird phenomenon of Christmas celebration in China…I would say mission accomplished!)
I was originally going to write a serious post about my thoughts on Christmas in China. However, I think I will leave that for another day; I’m still trying to recover from my magical mystery tour. And yet, when I think about it, what better example than this afternoon to demonstrate the result of celebrating a holiday devoid of any cultural context? Madness ensues. More on this later, when the tracers are gone and the walls stop melting.