Christmas in China

Christmas in China was pretty interesting.

I have to admit I was pretty surprised by the amount of Christmas decorations that had gone up around Beijing. Kind of made me wonder if people here really understand what the holiday is all about. I asked a few of my friends, and they all told me pretty much the same thing: Shopping.

So I guess they understand it pretty well.

I wasn’t planning on doing anything special for Christmas, but it seemed like a shame to just sit in my apartment on Christmas Eve alone and feeling sorry for myself, so I went downtown with some friends. In the spirit of Christmas, they took me to an ‘80s music concert. Not Western ‘80s music, mind you, but Chinese ‘80s music.

Yeah, I have no idea what this has to do with Christmas either.

Still, it was a lot of fun. The highlight for me was when a really hot girl in tight jeans and an exposed midriff came out and sang what I swear was the theme song to Final Fantasy V. It was pretty awesome.

But here’s the thing for me: I ran into this other Western guy, and he was devastated that it was going to be Chinese ‘80s music and not Western ‘80s music. He was dressed like some kind of Trendy Dweeb, which I guess is how he imagined people looked in the ‘80s.

His melodramatic dismay was pretty hard for me to understand. I mean, he was only in Beijing for a short time, and seemed to be really into Western ‘80s music, so I’m sure he’ll go to plenty of Western ‘80s music-themed events when he goes home. Yet there he was, with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience ‘80s music from a Chinese perspective, and he was acting like it was the end of the world. It seemed pretty odd to me. Why come to China if you’re not even going to try to experience some Chinese stuff? It would be like going to Italy and eating only at McDonald’s. What’s the point?

Sometimes I feel like even though we share the same planet, I really just live in a different world than some people.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone!!