Teviot's Home: The Christmas Spirit in Asia: "Christmas in AsiaThere's the religious holiday and then there's the secular celebration -- Christmas is for everyone! One thing I like most..."
Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)
2010-12-23
The Christmas Spirit in Asia
Christmas in Asia
There's the religious holiday and then there's the secular celebration -- Christmas is for everyone! One thing I like most about the holiday is that it honors the birth of a baby -- a reminder that each of us comes into the world pure, innocent, vulnerable, and equal. How our lives work out depends in large part on the circumstances we are born into but the holiday also honors hope. It's a time for remembering love and the value of peace. Perhaps most of all, it is a time when I find myself wondering about my place in the world and appreciating the love I have shared with family and friends.Christmas has always had a very personal meaning for me because my father made it the grandest event of the year. We developed many family traditions: decorating the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, a pinata filled with candy, the telling family stories and reading of St. Luke's version of the birth of baby Jesus, and waking Christmas morning to presents that appeared magically under the tree.
In recent years, I have been far from my New England roots spending each Christmas in a different country in Asia. I have lived among Buddhists in Thailand and Japan, Communists in China and Laos, Muslims and Hindus in Malaysia. The funny thing is that everyone I ever asked could sing "Jingle Bells."
As cities go, Baotou is one of the newest. Officially incorporated as a town in 1809 (according to Wikipedia), people there told me it was founded in 1949 in an agreement between the then Soviet Union and the newly fledged People's Republic of China, and steel and iron factories were built on a huge flat sandy plain with some swampy, arable areas. The location was chosen for several reasons: the water supply from a nearby bend of the Yellow River (Huang He / Hwang Ho(simplified Chinese: 黄河; traditional Chinese:黃河; pinyin: Huáng Hé; Mongolian: Hatan Gol,Queen river[]), the arable ground where some farming is possible, and most importantly, the deposits of 'rare earth,' metals that are important in steel production and other technologies. The Bayan Obo deposit (Mongolian: "rich"+"ovoo", Chinese: 白云鄂博, also Bayun-Obo, Baiyun'ebo) has the largest deposits of rare earth metals yet found and, as of 2005, responsible for 45% of global rare earth metal production.[1][2][3] China now produces 97% of the world's rare earth and most of it comes from Baotou.
The people needed to run the factories in Baotou were 'imported,' mostly from the northeast areas of China. Most people I met were the second generation of their family to live in Baotou but still had relatives near Dalian. Their lives were very full with work in the factories and performing all the other services that a city needs: the barbers who shaved businessmen on street, the bus drivers that plowed through the sandstorms, the teachers, bakers, the cleaners. I taught doctors and nurses in the main city hospital and graduate students in the medical college.
Christmas Day 2005 was one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. More than 100 students attended a Christmas party at which each of my classes performed songs and skits in English. A highlight was the advanced class performing Clement C. Moore's famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nick," otherwise known by its first line: "Twas the night before Christmas..." As we began to collect props and costumes for the show, I realized that Christmas seemed to be everywhere in this Chinese city. Shopkeepers posted wreaths and portraits of Santa in their windows. Students took me to a mall that was lined with Christmas goodies where we found headbands with deer antlers and ears, elf hats, and even a full Santa suit. 
It was a wonderful night -- and a true celebration of the Christmas spirit.
Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)
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