Oh yes.

It is Christmas time in the Jing, complete with a decking of the halls and more than a few jingling bells. Ironic, isnt it, that the most 'traditional' Christmas I'll be having will be in the capital of a Communist country?

The bite of winter wind and settling of snow somehow makes all of the carols more palatable for me. These things, these trappings of festive-ness, were difficult for me to handle growing up in Los Angeles...a city even farther removed from the homeland of these traditions than early colonies like Plymouth or New York. At least in New York the felling of pine trees and songs about 'dashing through the snow' are pertinent- in Los Angeles they seem down right silly. Forget all of the other issues i have with Christmas (Christmas being a commercialized Christian holiday- and commercialization and Christianity being two of the things i agree with the least), but celebrating reindeer and snowmen in a desert climate has always been despicable to me. I mean...couldn't the holiday have been tweaked to at least fit the local community celebrating it? Yea, I know, i've heard of the whole palm tree in place of a pine tree thing, but who really does that? I can understand that people living all over the nation want to celebrate the holiday, but I think that if we look to the deeper meaning of the season it becomes apparent that we don't need the exact same decorations and songs everywhere. What is being celebrated is the birth of a savior, not a fat old guy in a fur trimmed suit or the first snow of the season. I mean, moving Christmas back and into winter was originally done to sync it up to Winter Solstice, no? As a way to make it more palatable to pagans? I mean, I feel like we could have at least kept up with the theme of adapting the holiday to suit it's new celebrants- right? Or is that just too hopeful?

Anyway, it is thus that i find myself tolerating rather than despising the Merry Christmas signs and songs that bedeck Beijing at this time of year- at least songs about snow and sleds are relevant in Northern China. That is until I remember that I'm in China, and this is a Christian holiday, and all the Santas are Caucasian, and the only reason Christmas exists here is as a consumerism extravaganza. Then I cry a little on the inside.

And on that note, I'm going to get going. I have to fly down to sunny, warm Southern China in a few hours and there are some Buddhist confection shops that need hitting up for inflight snacks. I'll be in Guangxi for a few days, the southern province that borders Canton, Hunan, and Vietnam. It's purported to be mountainous and beautiful, full of wild expanses and ancient culture. Hopefully, hopefully hopefully i won't be stuck in a city the whole but will have the nature break that i so desperately need. Then again with a projected temperature of 72 degrees farenheit, I'll be happy to just stand in the street. I'll give you the scoop and let you guys know how it is once I'm home.

love&luz
Jessie