I celebrated my first Christmas overseas and without any family members this year and it was a bit hard. I have always been around relatives for the holidays and got to do our traditions like going to midnight mass on Christmas eve, opening presents on Christmas morning, watching a Christmas Story, and drinking apple cider. This year I was able to do some of these traditions but others I could not. Way not.
First, teaching western holidays is part of my school's curriculum. Students get to learn what westerners do on certain days and we can celebrate them if we can. For Thanksgiving my first grade students drew what they were thankful for and created turkey pictures with their hands.
Christmas we were able to make ornaments and hang them around my room. I made cookies and we watched a movie. What we were going to do was have Santa come and give students presents. Students were going to do a scavenger hunt around the school and we were all going to listen to Christmas music. I say going because we did not get do those things. In fact, Santa was banned, any decorations with Merry Christmas wording had to be taken down, and no celebration on the actual day. It seems that a certain entity, who I will call the Grinch, decided that Christmas was too western and not Chinese enough.
We are a little confused on why this was happening for a few reasons.
The first is that when our students go to the mall, watch TV, or take the subway there are advertisements for Christmas everywhere. Students can see Christmas trees and wreathes displayed in stores or watch cartoons where Mickey dresses like Santa and invites them to see the Shanghai Disney theme park where Christmas will be full blown awesome. It seems as if the "Grinch" is okay selling Christmas but not students learning it.
Second, Christmas movies are available here. When I asked my adult students if they were familiar with any Christmas films they listed off Home Alone, Elf, and Polar Express as films they had seen before. One person stated Mean Girls, which I will give credit for. On the online movie service here, Youku (no Netflix here sadly, even with VPN) I was able to find every Christmas movie that I usually watch this season (except for the Patrick Stewart Christams Carol which everyone should know is the best version). So it isn't like the Grinch is banning Christmas for viewing or learning about either.
Third, some of my students are Christian and did take off the day to celebrate. Teachers did a gift exchange on their own time and even the company I work for had a Christmas party. The company owned grocery store was able to hang up Santas and say Merry Christmas. However, the school was not able to do any of these things. Why? The company and the individuals working or learning from the company are allowed to do these things which are literally in front of our kids but the school can't do it. It seems that there are loopholes you can get around but my school got caught the rope.
You may have noticed that I mentioned that students asked for the day off for Christmas. Yes, I worked on Christmas and no one in the entire country gets the day off unless you ask for personal leave. It is not a national holiday and probably never will be. (Americans stating there is a war on Christmas can kiss my misletoe.)
One of my co-workers had an attitude that she was going to teach Christmas anyway since she had planned it all out. "What is the worst they can do to me?" I told her that most likely they would fine her or ask for her resignation. If she was considered evangelizing, she could be deported or even do jail time. This is all on the US governement's website by the way. This is not America where you can teach a pleathora of religions for educational use. This is not where you can state your mind and be okay. This is a place where you are not a citizen but you have to follow the laws. Pleading ignorance will get you nowhere either, because once you are in a foreign country you are expected to know the laws.
What about my actual Christmas? On the weekend I went to Shanghai and attended mass and ate my beloved western food at a high end restaurant. I bought some Christmas presents for myself which included a silver bat bracelet, old snuff jars which are cool as heck, and a statue. On Christmas day my co-workers and I went to a restaurant then headed to my apartment to exchange gifts, drink apple cider, eat cookies, and watch A Christmas Story. None of them experienced anything like this before and loved each part of it. I was touched to recieve a Jesus statue from one of my co-workers who knew I was Christian. Others got me a headband and earrings which are things I love a lot! That night my dad and brother video called me and we talked about our holidays. It was a great day.
Overall I was very touched on Christmas. My co-workers cared enough about me to pay attention to things I liked or in one case was part of my identity and knew that Christmas was coming up to give me these things. I still got to see my family as well and got to do some of my traditions. Being overseas can be hard when it comes to the holidays but there are ways that it can feel like home. So as we say in China, Happy Holidays!
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