Jason Barbacovi's Me and Chairman Mao

A Christmas Story

For as long as I can remember, people having been saying that Christmas is dying, maybe even dead. They say that the Christmas spirit—past, present, and future—has disappeared, that the entire holiday season is now nothing more than a crass, soulless exercise in commercialism at its worst. They would have us all believe that things were oh-so-much better in the good old days—generally understood to mean the Fifties, circa Leave It to Beaver—when kids of all ages apparently left nauseatingly sweet wine and unleavened bread on the table for Jesus instead of cookies and milk on the mantle for Santa who, let's face it, really doesn't need the extra calories; an era when cherubic little children would praise the Lord when opening their presents instead of giving thanks to a mysterious interloper who, with his flying animals, ability to magically travel up and down chimneys, and predilection for the color red was almost assuredly demonic and a friend of Satan, if not a particularly fiendish incarnation of the Great Deceiver himself.

I am here to tell you that this is not true. Sure, Christmas may not be the joyous religious festival it may have been in the time before department stores, but reports of its demise have been, as they say, greatly exaggerated. No matter how much money is spent over the holiday season or how few people drag themselves into a church Christmas morning, generally for the first time since Easter, the last few weeks in every December will always be magical, with a certain something in the air that makes everyone a little more friendly, a little more generous, even a little more happy. Whether this is a result of the heady intoxication that comes from spending money you don't have on things you don't need; a side-effect of the barely concealed glee of tens of thousands of children who know that in a matter of days they'll get piles of toys for doing nothing more than waking up; or even the Christmas Spirit, holy or with a small S, the latter of which is usually administered in eggnog form, I have no idea, but I take it as proof that Christmas is alive and, if not exactly well, not quite ready to start pushing up the proverbial daisies. Or possibly poinsettias, as the case may be.

At least that's the state of things in the United States, and presumably in the rest of the Western world as well. However, if you want to find somewhere where the Christmas Spirit is truly dead, a place where Christmas arrived with the all the style but none of the actual substance, you need look no further than China. Preferably Beijing in late 2005 if you can arrange it, although if you can't manage that—and honestly, most of you won't be able to—visiting any big Chinese city around Christmas for the next decade or so should do, since I doubt things will progress too far on the Christianity front in the Middle Kingdom any time in the near future. But why that specific year, in that specific place? Because, for me, I will forever remember December of oh-five as the year that Christmas puked on Beijing. And no, that isn't supposed to conjure up visions of sugarplums or anything else quite so pleasant. But it is, I firmly believe, the most accurate description of what the city looked like at the time.

Simply put, Christmas was everywhere, but not in any way that made sense. Instead, it was as if people had just thrown—perhaps I should say spewed?—strings of lights, Santa Claus cutouts, Merry Christmas banners, and other festive, brightly colored bits and bots randomly about the city in an attempt to decorate for the season. And sure, said decorations were clustered more tightly around malls and shopping complexes, which is apparently de rigueur even in China, but they also popped up in the most unexpected of places.

For example, a single block of one of Beijing's large, circular ring roads was decked out like either a two-bit whore or a mid-Eighties Tammy Faye Baker (take your pick), with every surface covered in tacky Christmas paraphernalia: the entire median was wrapped with heavy, sparkling green paper; grinning cardboard Santa heads, the same ones you see in stores across America—likely because they're all made in China—were stuck on top of every supporting post like holiday scarecrows; a festive red garland was strewn haphazardly around the top rail; and signs that wished everyone driving by "Merry Christmas 2005" were strategically placed on all four sides of the entire setup. While this display in and of itself wasn't so bad, the problem was that nothing else was decorated, that half-mile long chunk of expressway between exits was the only section of highway that was decked out for the holidays. And not just on that particular road but, as far as I could tell, in the entire city. Why Christmas came only to that block while ignoring what I presume were hundreds of equally deserving blocks I have no idea, although I'm guessing it's because, like those bodybuilders you used to see on cable TV who were breaking boards and lifting weights in the name of the Lord, they just didn't get it.

Of course, there were also plenty of non-road-based decorations, which ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous to the downright scary. The enterprising management office for our apartment complex had used red spray paint to stencil Christmas wreaths, complete with bells, on every window in every lobby of every building, but had managed to put most of them upside down, presumably because none of them had seen a real Christmas wreath and didn't know any better. An upscale mall had a massive two-story fake Christmas tree in its central rotunda, which seemed fairly standard—green, oversized red star on top—until you moved in for a closer look and realized that the entire thing was made out of Heineken bottles. And while that would doubtlessly make for a very merry Christmas, the next morning would be a total bitch, don't you think? Finally, one of the local shopping centers had constructed a Christmas-themed entrance to sit over the regular front doors that was more carnival fun house than anything else: a castle-like gate painted to look like it was built from midnight blue bricks, complete with a spinning Santa head perched on top that, between the nervous smile and panicky eyes that looked down and to the right so as not to meet your gaze, looked more worried than welcoming, like he was concerned some overzealous Communist party lackey might show up and out him as the capitalist threat that he did indeed represent.

So if the entire holiday was so screwed up, why bother with it at all? Because the Chinese like Christmas for the same reason we all like Christmas, and it's not Jesus, Santa Claus, or the ability to consume all the cookies, chocolates, and fudge we can cram down our collective throats with impunity, although I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the desert angle was a small part of it. No, when you get right down to it, we like Christmas because of the presents. I've said it once and I'll say it again: any holiday that involves getting free stuff is going to catch on. Really, it's just that simple. Sure, there may be some enjoyment to be had from decorating, from spending time with family members that you don't actively dislike, and even from giving a well-received gift, but in the end, it's all about the presents, and the more, the better. And those of you who disagree with this are either liars or simply have the misfortune of continually receiving crappy presents, for which I am truly sorry.

And really, for the Chinese, that's all there is too it. Sure, there's probably a small, undoubtedly put-upon population of Christians who give lip service to Jesus' big day, but for the most part it's about the gifts, and that's it. And when I say that's it, I really mean it: there's nothing else there, not even the semblance of a thought of an idea—you get the point, I'm sure—that Christmas may be about something more. For example, one day in late November, a Chinese acquaintance of ours said, apropos of nothing, that she was going to "celebrate Christmas this year, maybe put up a Christmas tree." And, as if this sudden pronouncement that she and her family were suddenly going to start rejoicing in the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't strange enough—the way she said it, you could tell it was a choice that was roughly on par with deciding to pick up a pizza on the way home for dinner—she also happened to be a Muslim. To her it didn't matter that, traditionally, Islam and Christianity mix about as well as oil and water, baking soda and vinegar, white fish and pinot noir, and things of that nature, because for her to celebrate Christmas meant to give and, more importantly, to receive presents, nothing more.

The thing is, she wasn't alone in her lack of Christmas knowledge, as I found out a few weeks later at work. On the mid-December day in question, a coworker I was meeting with sat down and said, "I was hoping you could explain Christmas."

Explain Christmas? Think about that for a second, about everything that would involve. I mean, trying to describe the cast of characters alone would take days: Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, Ebenezer Scrooge, and so on. And those are just the people on top of the bill. What about the supporting cast, the Three Wise Men; the shepherds watching their flocks by night; and all those herald angles droning on and on about new born kings, mercy mild, and some other shit that I can never remember? Not to mention Bob Cratchit, the Grinch, all the Whos down in Whoville, and the rest. And remember, this is for someone whose Christmas knowledge consisted of two things: it was a Western holiday, and it involved—wait for it—boatloads of presents. That was it, everything else needed to be explained.

Despite all this, I said yes, mostly because I couldn’t think of a polite way to say no.

"Do you know who Jesus Christ is?" I started. The question made me feel more than a little strange, since I have never been too comfortable with religion. (Like I always say, Jesus is dead and God is forgiving, so sin away.) In my mind, five minutes after a question like that you're required to ask the person you're talking with to drop down onto his or her knees and praise the Lord with you, and ten minutes after that you're going over to their house to burn all their Harry Potter books, which as we all know promote witchcraft. And wizardry.

However, the question in question didn't seem to bother him. He just shook his head and said that he hadn't.

"You've never heard of Jesus?"

"No."

This was going to be harder than I thought.

"Have you ever seen a picture of a guy on a cross, like this?" I drew a quick stick-figure person on a cross that itself consisted of two overlapping sticks, so that the entire thing looked like a hangman game gone terribly wrong.

He nodded, and I was off. It's not worth going into specifics, but I somehow managed to condense everything I knew about the religious side of Christmas into about ten rambling, uninterrupted minutes. And sure, I might have forgotten some things and simply left out some others (I never liked the whole Herod subplot—he's poorly written and completely two-dimensional. I mean, the power-mad tyrant is so overdone, don't you think?), but overall I thought I did a pretty good job.

"But if Christmas is the birthday of Jesus, why do people get the present?" He asked when I was finished. "When it is your birthday, you are supposed to get the present."

So much for doing a good job.

"Um, normally, yes. But not for Christmas. During Christmas, you get the presents."

"From Jesus?"

I didn't answer right away. Not only because I wouldn’t have been able to do so without laughing, but also because I couldn't help but imagine what Christmas might be like if that were the case. The gifts would be crappier, at any rate. I mean, you can be sure Jesus isn't leaving of any of the Grand Theft Auto games under the tree for Billy. And speaking of that, what about the tree itself? It would have to go—way too pagan—possibly to be replaced by a burning bush or something similar, which would obviously present some significant problems but would also provide a nice, natural light for your Christmas Eve festivities. On the plus side, if you left out a piece of sourdough and a cup of water at night, Jesus would be able to provide unlimited amounts of bread and wine for the next day's Christmas dinner, which would be handy, not to mention money-saving. Whatever the case, at least he wouldn't have trouble getting up and down anyone's chimney: he could simply rise up again and again and again.

When I was finally able to respond, I explained that the presents did not actually come from Jesus. "The presents come from Santa Claus," I told him.

"Who?"

Five minutes later, he was looking at his watch too fast to process what time it was and saying he had a very important meeting to go to.

"But I'm not finished yet," I protested. "There's a lot more."

I mean, I had only just started talking about Rudolph, and hadn't gotten into his backstory at all. And let's face it, you can't truly understand Rudolph without knowing that all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. Really, you just can't. As he was leaving, I said we could discuss it later. Not surprisingly, he never wanted to talk about it again, and we never did.

But that's the point, isn't it? He didn't know anything about Christmas, and he didn't want to. That was typical of the Chinese I talked to, primarily of the younger, we-don’t-remember-Mao era. They liked Christmas because, in their paraphrased words, it was like Spring Festival, but without the obligations. To make sense of that remark, I will tell you that Spring Festival, AKA Chinese New Year, is the closest thing the Chinese have to Christmas, a time when people traditionally go back to their hometown, wherever that may be, to spend time with their family and to give away red envelopes that are filled with money. (Which, as far as gifts go, is pretty damn good, I have to admit.) The problem with this system is that it has a built-in statute of limitations: when you reach a certain age, you're expected to give out the envelopes instead of receive them, and suddenly the entire holiday becomes about nothing more than spending a solid week in close quarters with your extended family and giving away your hard-earned cash to a swarm of little brats who don't even bother to say thank-you. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

When you look at it that way, it's no wonder China has come down with a serious case of Christmas fever. First, since it's not thought of as a family holiday, there's no need to spend time with anyone you don't want to, like the drunken uncle who gets uncomfortably argumentative halfway through dinner, or the musty-smelling grandma who insists on pinching your cheek every time you pass by, despite the fact that you haven't been of a cheek-pinching age for several decades. Second, and much more importantly, the gifts never stop coming, regardless of the calendar year in which you happened to be brought into existence. Plus, with Christmas, you are now free to get all manner of items that were previously impossible to receive, with the red envelope-size restriction: books, CDs, video games, DVDs, TVs, and things of that nature. And you never know, your present might still be a hefty, cash-filled envelope—that's the simple joy of Christmas.

I suppose there's a chance that this might change eventually, that the holiday—in a curious reversal from the way things have gone in the Western world—will evolve from a simple gift exchange into something more complex, something that comes complete with commitments, office parties, and overnight stays with the family. After all, if you start throwing around free presents, pretty soon everyone's going to start expecting one: your parents, your siblings, your sibling's children, and so on. You get the idea. At that point, getting together on the morning of December twenty-fifth to exchange gifts becomes the simplest solution, and suddenly you have yourself a Christmas, of sorts. Then again, maybe none of that will happen and Christmas will remain a joyous, capitalistic exercise in material excess in one of the last Communist holdouts on Earth. Really, I have no idea—at this point, either one is as likely.

What I am sure of, however, is that Christmas is definitely in China to stay. One summer's day in late June, Holly and I were in a taxi with a woman who had lived in China her entire life. Somehow, we ended up talking about recent vacations we had taken, and from there the discussion moved on to upcoming trips. When we mentioned that we would be going home for the holidays at some point in mid-December, the woman rolled her eyes, sighed in the way teenagers do when their parents ask them a stupid—that is, any—question, and said with all the outrage she could manage, "My company doesn't even give us Christmas day off."

Not yet, anyway.