Beijing Students Become The Grinches: Say NO to Christmas! 妈妈我不要圣诞节来！
A group of Ph.D. students from the top Chinese universities posted a petition urging Chinese citizens to resist the Western holiday. They argue that most Chinese don't even understand the true origins or purpose of the holiday other than for its capitalist inducing behavior.
The student's petition is a de ja vu to other calls for a return to a more pure China - hmmmm does this remind you of other periods throughout Chinese history?
The students are definitely on point that an overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens don't understand the "true meaning" of Christmas, but what the students don't understand is that there is not a definitive "Christmas" in America and I believe large groups of Americans don't even understand or celebrate a completely traditional religious Christmas. For an ethnically and culturally diverse America, the holiday is timed with a winter break and is also seen as an opportunity to be with and to give presents to family and friends.
It is not Christmas per se that is upsetting the students, it is what they see as a one-way domination of Western culture in China. That's understandable - the first picture of the store mannequins from He Ping Jie in Beijing that I took last year, shows how one way holiday is promoted by businesses in Beijing. However, it's pictures like the second one where you have an amazingly deformed and too-tight of pants Santa hanging over a DJ booth in a Sanlitun bar, while they DJ is mixing Chinese Pop Songs with Missy Elliot on Christmas Eve, that shows along with globalization, comes surprising cultural reinterpretations. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall argues that popular culture as “an arena of consent and resistance.” So it's like they are spitting back the very mixed notions of Christmas that Americans create.
Well if Jewish Americans celebrate Christmas by playing Chinese mahjong and eating at Chinese restaurants, why can't the Chinese themselves get into the mix? Well for now, those 10 students can keep protesting - Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a few Grinches.
.
Technorati Tags: beijing, china, christmas, culture, grinch, ph.d., resist, student, traditional, western