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What's in a Name?
December 26, 2006
10 graduate students from 10 of our top universities recently came up with an idea: boycott Christmas.
First, it is the name. Christmas is generally translated into “圣诞” which literally means a festival for the “Birth of a Saint”. Calling Jesus a Saint is to give him the same status as Confucian, it doesn’t seem right - at least not from the perspective of a non-Christian Chinese who happens to make up 99% of the population in this country.
These students propose to name Christmas as “耶诞” meaning a festival for the “Birth of Jesus”. (People’s Daily uses “圣诞”. I suppose this is also the official formal translation.)
Both “圣诞” and “耶诞” are in use - older generations tend to use the later while young people nowadays almost entirely use “圣诞” to refer to Christmas.
Second, western festivals are fast gaining popularity among the younger generation and it is becoming so at the expenses of traditional Chinese festivals. More people are celebrating Christmas than Chinese New Year (this certainly is so for places like Hongkong but we are getting there soon) and Valentine Day means more to lovers in China than 元宵節 (Lantern Festival - a day traditionally for love and matchmaking). This trend is unlikely to be reversed due mainly to the sucessful commercialization of these western festivals and there is just way too much money involved to do anythng stupid; in part, it is also a result of a misconception that cetebration of these western festivals may have something to do with one’s social status - farmers do not celebrate Christmas or Valentine Day, rich and trendy people in the cities do. And who do not want to identify themselves with the later group?
Not sure why Joni would want to skate away from Christmas but she is not alone. I wish I could too.
Posted to General at December 26, 2006 12:26 AM :
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Comments
Christmas has become another measure of our material success. As your “not alone” link points out, parents are willing to take on additional debt so that their family will have enough presents to be considered acceptable. We measure our value as humans not by what we do, but what we buy or own. Materialism replaces culture, tradition, beliefs. I am not against a comfortable life style, success or money; it should not be all that we are.
Maybe we can’t skate away, maybe we just have to have our traditions our own beliefs to fill in the empty places given to us by Christmas.
posted by: Driver8 ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hollymolly.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 31, 2006 02:30 AM
Christams in Shanghai is a holiday for shoppers. I asked the white collar girls, what is Christmas and they tell me it a fat guy with a red suit and where is my gift!. Pretty funny I think. It’s like Valentines day in Shanghai. A day the card companies, flower peopel and choclate people get together to screw everyone when they double the prices for one day. Oh I for the restaurants. they charge even more for Valentines day for set dinners.
Luke Chou
www.ddsclub.com
www.chou.cn
posted by: ddsclub at February 18, 2007 08:39 AM
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