After talking to some friends in Shanghai, I learnt that there is no Christmas holiday here. They'd still have to go to work come 25th December. This made sense, because China is by no means Christian at all. But as many people are pointing out, many people who are not Christians seem to celebrate the occasion with greater gusto than Christians themselves.
Witness the Christmas trees and buntings that deck the front of malls and inside the malls. Some are techno-trees decked with glass mirrors, others are flushed pink in colour and all of them are at least 3 metres tall. And I am not talking about Singapore's Orchard Road. It's all right here in (communist) Shanghai.
Yes, you don't have to celebrate Christmas to be Christmasy. Somehow, the end of a year demands some symbol of the culmination of one year's effort and Christmas seems to be the universal choice of many, whether you celebrate it or not, or whether you are communist or a democracy, or whether you live in the hot tropics or in temperate Shanghai.
Yes, I am still blogging this as I sit in my Hotel room in Shanghai. Pity that I didn't bring enough electronics to transfer some pictures that I took over here with my handphone and digital camera into this blog. I'll do that when I get home.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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