Fuddland

This category is a subcategory of Cultural Experiences.

In case anyone is thinking that it’s a bit late to be writing about how I spent my Christmas, I should mention that today my company finally took down the seven-foot-tall Christmas tree that has been mildly annoying me with its presence every day since Epiphany.

I understand why an English training centre would want to acknowledge some of the Western festivals—since I joined this company we’ve had Halloween, Thanksgiving [whatever that is] and Christmas events—but I think it’s as important to show that they know [not to mention teach] about when things traditionally finish and life returns to one not filled with tinsel, plastic foliage and flashing lights. [Actually, I think that last one might be a little hard for them to swallow—after all, this is a country in which each and every tree is lit up in garish green as soon as the sun sets, all year round.]

When I grumbled to a few people around the office about the tree’s continued display, I was told that the reason it was still up was that it “looks beautiful”, but it looks as though my grumbling about this half-hearted approach to acknowledging Christmas has paid off—although now I don’t get to officially moan about it in the monthly Teachers’ Meeting tomorrow. Bah humbug!

Looks like I was too hasty in my applauding of the understatedness of the restaurant’s choice of Christmas decoration: they’re now going for the “more is more” school of thought.

Oh and, shear … sheep … wool … okay, a slightly tenuous link for the sake of a pun, but still not as bad as the joke from my cracker at my early Christmas dinner yesterday: what do elves learn at school?

Christmas decorations in China, just like in the rest of the Christmas-recognising world, generally fall into two categories: cheap and tacky or over-the-top, as shown by the two examples below.

The owners of the office block where I work managed a particularly pathetic display. This, believe it or not, is the finished display:

Those crackers look like they were arranged by a powerful sneeze. So it was a pleasant surprise to see a local restaurant taking a different tact, opting for a nice Christmas red and—staggeringly—without a single light bulb in sight. At first I wasn’t quite sure what they were doing wrapping yarn around the trunk and branches when I snapped the photo on my way to work—or why they needed two men standing guard to do it—but it all become clear when I went by again the next day.

A quick growing-my-own-tree tree update: no tree yet.

Although we do already have a traditional tacky foot-tall plastic tree, I hope you all agree that there’s no way I could not buy this:

Especially when it’s apparently as easy as “1, 2, 3, tree.”

I have opened, planted, and watered. Just how long I wait for stage 4, I’m not really sure. Watch this space!