I am happy to report that after all the adventures buying a tree, baking and seeing what Christmas does not look like in China, in the end, we had a really wonderful Christmas and I got over my homesickness.
About two weeks before Christmas we hosted our first party here in China. We had about 25-30 friends over for drinks and dessert and it was truly a wonderful time. We were able to look around and see that in our 5 months here we have indeed made some great friends. And having them all together to celebrate the season felt just like home.
For Christmas eve, we had our British friends Emma and Graeme and their kids and Emma's parents (who are visiting) to our house for dinner. It was just like our own families to have a boisterous bunch sitting 'round the table talking, eating, laughing, drinking and telling stories of Christmas past. And then we did the traditional parental thing of staying up way too late wrapping Santa's gifts and filling stockings.
Christmas morning was fabulous, with two bright-eyed little girls climbing on our bed asking if they could open their presents! Joe and I had to chuckle a little bit at the journey the toys they received had before coming to our house. Surely they traveled as much as Santa did. They were made in China, exported to the US, distributed to stores, purchased and wrapped in the US, taken to the post office and then sent back to China, through customs, and then finally to our house! But oh what happy little girls who opened those gifts!
And of course, Christmas day would not be complete without a dinner. This year we went to Sarah & Andy's house for a proper Christmas dinner, with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and all the fixings. And in case you didn't read my earlier post about my friend Sarah who told me where to find a proper Christmas tree, it was to that same Jewish friend's house that we went for a marvelous Christmas dinner. Only in China...
CHEERS!
Friday, December 28, 2007
The holidays in China-part 4: Strange Moments
There have been many things that struck me as strange throughout the month of December, and I'm going to try to give you a glimpse of them. Forgive how disjointed the post will probably seem!
Gigi's preschool (local Chinese school) had a Christmas tree, decorated and with fake presents underneath it, in the foyer of the school. And for the 2 weeks before Christmas every morning they were playing Christmas music over the speaker system. And we're not talking about "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", we're talking "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". If statistics play out correctly, only 12 of the children in Gigi's preschool of 200 are Christian, and they probably aren't even public about it.
Olivia's school (International school with American curriculum), on the other hand, had a winter concert without a single Christmas song in it.
Christmas decorations appearing in Shanghai shopping areas about 2 weeks before Christmas. If you could classify them as "Christmas" decorations. How about a pink tree with purple and red and blue decorations? Or a soaring 20 foot tree (still planted in a pot) with the size of ornaments you would put on your own 5 foot tree? (couldn't actually see the ornaments until you got up close to it.) Or fake packages under the trees wrapped in paper that resembles Valentine's Day, with pink and red hearts all over it? Or a huge 15 foot sign in front of the Chanel counter at a department store saying Merry Xmas (and literally using Xmas). Or my favorite, a Christmas tree in the mall with a sign across it's middle saying "Happy Uniglo Christmas", Uniglo is a clothing store in the mall.
Walking through Carrefour (big grocery store near my house) and hearing over the speakers the tune for Silent Night. As I listened I realized it was in Chinese and I thought to myself, well, that's cool. And a few minutes later I was listening to a Chinese rendition of the song Jingle Bells. But it sounded odd, so I stopped and listened more closely. Even though the rest of the song was in Chinese, the chorus was being sung as "Ding dong bells, Ding dong bells, ding dong all the way." Huh.
My Chinese tutor, Jessie, telling me that she had Christmas presents for the girls, but she wanted me to hide them until Christmas morning. "Why?" I asked. "So they don't open them of course!" she replied. I showed her the packages already under our tree and explained that the kids would leave them there until Christmas morning. She was totally disbelieving, she asked how I got them to leave them alone. I told her that's part of the excitement of Christmas morning, all the kids know you have to wait until that morning to open all your presents. "No! Really?" she exclaimed, "Chinese children would never wait, they would open the presents anyway!"
Explaining to Jessie that presents belong UNDER the Christmas tree, not IN the tree. Her blushing when she realized that's why her presents and ornaments kept falling out of the tree. By the way, Jessie is not Christian and does not believe in God, but thinks Christmas is a great holiday when she and her husband and some friends exchange gifts.
Discovering that if you buy a roll of Christmas wrapping paper at a local Chinese store, the piece of wrapping paper you get is 2 feet by 2 feet, not even big enough for a regular shirt box.
And last, but not least, laying in bed at night and hearing ornaments fall off our tree, followed by the sound of hundreds of needles plink-plinking down to the floor. For despite all our best efforts, our potted Christmas tree started dying about 2 days after it came to our house. On Christmas morning there were actually brown branches that had no needles left on them because the ornaments had slid down the branch, taking all the dry dead needles with them on the way. Oh what a Charlie Brown tree we have, but it's made for some fun memories!
Gigi's preschool (local Chinese school) had a Christmas tree, decorated and with fake presents underneath it, in the foyer of the school. And for the 2 weeks before Christmas every morning they were playing Christmas music over the speaker system. And we're not talking about "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", we're talking "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". If statistics play out correctly, only 12 of the children in Gigi's preschool of 200 are Christian, and they probably aren't even public about it.
Olivia's school (International school with American curriculum), on the other hand, had a winter concert without a single Christmas song in it.
Christmas decorations appearing in Shanghai shopping areas about 2 weeks before Christmas. If you could classify them as "Christmas" decorations. How about a pink tree with purple and red and blue decorations? Or a soaring 20 foot tree (still planted in a pot) with the size of ornaments you would put on your own 5 foot tree? (couldn't actually see the ornaments until you got up close to it.) Or fake packages under the trees wrapped in paper that resembles Valentine's Day, with pink and red hearts all over it? Or a huge 15 foot sign in front of the Chanel counter at a department store saying Merry Xmas (and literally using Xmas). Or my favorite, a Christmas tree in the mall with a sign across it's middle saying "Happy Uniglo Christmas", Uniglo is a clothing store in the mall.
Walking through Carrefour (big grocery store near my house) and hearing over the speakers the tune for Silent Night. As I listened I realized it was in Chinese and I thought to myself, well, that's cool. And a few minutes later I was listening to a Chinese rendition of the song Jingle Bells. But it sounded odd, so I stopped and listened more closely. Even though the rest of the song was in Chinese, the chorus was being sung as "Ding dong bells, Ding dong bells, ding dong all the way." Huh.
My Chinese tutor, Jessie, telling me that she had Christmas presents for the girls, but she wanted me to hide them until Christmas morning. "Why?" I asked. "So they don't open them of course!" she replied. I showed her the packages already under our tree and explained that the kids would leave them there until Christmas morning. She was totally disbelieving, she asked how I got them to leave them alone. I told her that's part of the excitement of Christmas morning, all the kids know you have to wait until that morning to open all your presents. "No! Really?" she exclaimed, "Chinese children would never wait, they would open the presents anyway!"
Explaining to Jessie that presents belong UNDER the Christmas tree, not IN the tree. Her blushing when she realized that's why her presents and ornaments kept falling out of the tree. By the way, Jessie is not Christian and does not believe in God, but thinks Christmas is a great holiday when she and her husband and some friends exchange gifts.
Discovering that if you buy a roll of Christmas wrapping paper at a local Chinese store, the piece of wrapping paper you get is 2 feet by 2 feet, not even big enough for a regular shirt box.
And last, but not least, laying in bed at night and hearing ornaments fall off our tree, followed by the sound of hundreds of needles plink-plinking down to the floor. For despite all our best efforts, our potted Christmas tree started dying about 2 days after it came to our house. On Christmas morning there were actually brown branches that had no needles left on them because the ornaments had slid down the branch, taking all the dry dead needles with them on the way. Oh what a Charlie Brown tree we have, but it's made for some fun memories!
The holidays in China-part 3: baking Christmas cookies
My next quest after successfully finding the Christmas tree was to find the ingredients to make my Christmas cookies. I significantly pared down the list to 4 different kinds of cookies and trooped off to the store. Oh my God. It took me 4 different stores over 2 days to get all the ingredients, and I had to pay $8 USD for a can of Cream of Tartar! And that was just the beginning of my adventure. Baking cookies in China takes more than the ingredients for the cookies, it also takes a laptop computer, an oven thermometer, and a brain!
The first cookies I set out to make were peanut butter with Hershey kisses. Gigi & Olivia helped out by taking the wrappers off the kisses for me, although at one point Gigi was also helping by biting the pointy top off the kiss to "make it look prettier mama." Anyway, early on in the recipe I realized that I needed to convert the 1/2 cup of butter the recipe calls for to ounces, because the sticks of butter here are imported from New Zealand or France and they have ounce markings on the side. So the laptop comes into the kitchen and I google "convert cups to ounces" and wait, and wait, and wait. And finally realize that our wireless doesn't work in the kitchen. Out to the family room, google again, and find out how many ounces I need. Great, cookies dough gets made and then I wait another 25 minutes for the oven to get pre-heated. All in all, it takes my very small oven (half the size of ones in America) 40 minutes to pre-heat to 350 degrees F. Go figure. Anyway, cookies come out and are flatter than usual but taste great so the baking continues.
Next are the sugar cookies, and these are fun because the girls are going to ice and decorate them. Nothing about these cookies is very complex, except in China where the only type of lemon extract I could find came in these little vials instead of bottles. It's a German brand, and each little vial was .5 ounce of extract. (These little vials look like the sample perfumes you get in department stores.) When I bought them I didn't think a thing of it. But when I popped the plastic lid off and tried to pour it into the teaspoon, the liquid would not come out. Finally I realized that there was a bubble in there and it was moving to the top and creating a seal every time I tried to pour. OK, so I get out a knife to try to pop the bubble, too fat, won't fit in there. I scrounge up a paper clip and unbend it. I stick it in and it goes right through the bubble but the seal doesn't break. Is this a bad joke? I ram the paper clip up and down and still the bubble remains. What is the trick to getting this lemon extract out of here? Then I decide it must be this particular vial, so I open another one. Same story, can't get the stupid liquid to come out. I am so frustrated that I shake it up and down and of course drops of lemon extract come out. So I shake these little vials with all my might and manage to get a teaspoon worth of extract by shaking individual drops out of 3 separate vials. I still don't know how the hell you're supposed to get liquid to pour from those vials but I got my teaspoon! Once the lemon extract is in, the rest of the cookie dough is made without incident.
But every batch of these sugar cookies comes out different, the first ones are burnt after 6 minutes in the oven, the next ones are crispy on the edges and gooey in the middle after 8 minutes. I know the temperature is steady because I have the oven thermometer in there, so what is going on? I have no idea, but I HAVE to get at least 24 good cookies because I am taking them to Olivia's class the next day for a decorating project. I end up making 2 batches (probably 72 cookies in all) and hand pick out the best looking 24, even though they are slightly darker than they should be. I taste them and they seem alright, if a little lemony.
The next evening I make the snickerdoodles, which are the reason I bought the $8 cream of tarter. I make about 4 dozen of these and set them to cool. The next morning Joe says to me politely, "did you taste those snickerdoodles?" Uh oh. I taste them and they are awful, and rock hard. Totally inedible and have to go in the trash, but even after re-reading the recipe to see if I did anything wrong, I don't know why.
Later the same week, I am making a cheesecake and I get out a stick of butter. One thing I have failed to mention about buying imported food in China is that it all has a big sticker on it with all the Chinese import information. And they always put the sticker over the instructions on the box, or the nutritional information. Seriously, it never fails. Never once have I seen one of these import stickers covering up the bottom of the box, and never once has the sticker come off the box or wrapper without ripping it. Many times I have looked up baking directions on the betty crocker website for a box of brownies or a cake mix. Thank God for the internet. Anyway, the point of me telling you about the annoying import stickers is that the stick of butter I got out for the cheesecake crust had the import sticker placed crookedly on wrapper. For the first time ever I could clearly see the ounce markings on the wrapper. And to my horror, I realized that some of the markings I had been using to measure out ounces were really the top of the number 1. But usually the wrapper covers up the oz. next to the number 1, so I thought it was another marking line! And so, ladies and gentleman, the mystery of the underbaked, overbaked, and rock-hard cookies is solved. I was using approximately HALF the butter my recipes called for in all my cookie baking. Remember at the beginning when I said baking cookies in China requires a brain???
The first cookies I set out to make were peanut butter with Hershey kisses. Gigi & Olivia helped out by taking the wrappers off the kisses for me, although at one point Gigi was also helping by biting the pointy top off the kiss to "make it look prettier mama." Anyway, early on in the recipe I realized that I needed to convert the 1/2 cup of butter the recipe calls for to ounces, because the sticks of butter here are imported from New Zealand or France and they have ounce markings on the side. So the laptop comes into the kitchen and I google "convert cups to ounces" and wait, and wait, and wait. And finally realize that our wireless doesn't work in the kitchen. Out to the family room, google again, and find out how many ounces I need. Great, cookies dough gets made and then I wait another 25 minutes for the oven to get pre-heated. All in all, it takes my very small oven (half the size of ones in America) 40 minutes to pre-heat to 350 degrees F. Go figure. Anyway, cookies come out and are flatter than usual but taste great so the baking continues.
Next are the sugar cookies, and these are fun because the girls are going to ice and decorate them. Nothing about these cookies is very complex, except in China where the only type of lemon extract I could find came in these little vials instead of bottles. It's a German brand, and each little vial was .5 ounce of extract. (These little vials look like the sample perfumes you get in department stores.) When I bought them I didn't think a thing of it. But when I popped the plastic lid off and tried to pour it into the teaspoon, the liquid would not come out. Finally I realized that there was a bubble in there and it was moving to the top and creating a seal every time I tried to pour. OK, so I get out a knife to try to pop the bubble, too fat, won't fit in there. I scrounge up a paper clip and unbend it. I stick it in and it goes right through the bubble but the seal doesn't break. Is this a bad joke? I ram the paper clip up and down and still the bubble remains. What is the trick to getting this lemon extract out of here? Then I decide it must be this particular vial, so I open another one. Same story, can't get the stupid liquid to come out. I am so frustrated that I shake it up and down and of course drops of lemon extract come out. So I shake these little vials with all my might and manage to get a teaspoon worth of extract by shaking individual drops out of 3 separate vials. I still don't know how the hell you're supposed to get liquid to pour from those vials but I got my teaspoon! Once the lemon extract is in, the rest of the cookie dough is made without incident.
But every batch of these sugar cookies comes out different, the first ones are burnt after 6 minutes in the oven, the next ones are crispy on the edges and gooey in the middle after 8 minutes. I know the temperature is steady because I have the oven thermometer in there, so what is going on? I have no idea, but I HAVE to get at least 24 good cookies because I am taking them to Olivia's class the next day for a decorating project. I end up making 2 batches (probably 72 cookies in all) and hand pick out the best looking 24, even though they are slightly darker than they should be. I taste them and they seem alright, if a little lemony.
The next evening I make the snickerdoodles, which are the reason I bought the $8 cream of tarter. I make about 4 dozen of these and set them to cool. The next morning Joe says to me politely, "did you taste those snickerdoodles?" Uh oh. I taste them and they are awful, and rock hard. Totally inedible and have to go in the trash, but even after re-reading the recipe to see if I did anything wrong, I don't know why.
Later the same week, I am making a cheesecake and I get out a stick of butter. One thing I have failed to mention about buying imported food in China is that it all has a big sticker on it with all the Chinese import information. And they always put the sticker over the instructions on the box, or the nutritional information. Seriously, it never fails. Never once have I seen one of these import stickers covering up the bottom of the box, and never once has the sticker come off the box or wrapper without ripping it. Many times I have looked up baking directions on the betty crocker website for a box of brownies or a cake mix. Thank God for the internet. Anyway, the point of me telling you about the annoying import stickers is that the stick of butter I got out for the cheesecake crust had the import sticker placed crookedly on wrapper. For the first time ever I could clearly see the ounce markings on the wrapper. And to my horror, I realized that some of the markings I had been using to measure out ounces were really the top of the number 1. But usually the wrapper covers up the oz. next to the number 1, so I thought it was another marking line! And so, ladies and gentleman, the mystery of the underbaked, overbaked, and rock-hard cookies is solved. I was using approximately HALF the butter my recipes called for in all my cookie baking. Remember at the beginning when I said baking cookies in China requires a brain???
The holidays in China-part 2: Finding a tree
So, about a week after Thanksgiving when I acknowledged that I was truly depressed about not being in the States for the holidays, I resolved that the way to feel better would be to get a Christmas tree and buy decorations for our house. You see, when we packed for 2 years in China, I was not thinking about holidays, I was thinking about what we needed for everyday living. I brought 12 bottles of Children's Tylenol, and a boatload of my contact solution, but not Christmas tree ornaments!
Our first quest was for a Christmas tree. We heard that the flower market has Christmas trees, so off we went. Flower markets here have live flowers and plants, as well as fake flowers and plants, and decorative items for purchase. Seemed reasonable. Well, being from Oregon and LOVING the fragrant 7 foot Noble fir tree that we tromp out to the farm and cut down every year, we were not willing to settle for the bush-like evergreens that had been trimmed into the shape of a Christmas tree. Plus, the limbs and needles were so soft that we didn't think ornaments would stay on them. Strike 1.
Next I hear from other friends that a company called Villa Lifestyles usually gets trees in from Denmark every Christmas. I find their email address and contact them. Nope, not this year. Strike 2.
Next, I mention to my friend Sarah, who's Jewish, that we have struck out looking for our Christmas tree. And she says, "Oh, I got mine at the florist in Xintiandi, they had a whole bunch." Uh, thanks. I was struck at that moment that this is such a great description of the expat community in Shanghai. Everybody helping everybody else out, and your key piece of information often coming from the most unlikely source!
So off I trooped to the florist. Sure enough, about 25 trees leaned up against the outside of the shop all wrapped in rope. There was no examining these trees from every angle and making sure there wasn't a "bad" side to the tree. There was only determining the right height, and then deciding if we wanted them to plant the tree or cut it off above the root-ball. Yes, that's right, these Christmas trees still had the root-ball intact. Since we have no Christmas tree stand and my Jewish friend didn't know where to get one of those, I opted for them to plant the tree in a....red bucket. Luckily, the first purchase I had made for the holiday season was a silk tree skirt that some enterprising ex-pat had made and was selling at the Shanghai Expat Association coffee. I hoped it would cover the bucket adequately!
Joe was on a business trip to Taiwan, and I happily reported to him that night that I had found a "proper" Christmas tree and it would be delivered the next day.
And it was, bucket and all. I untied the rope and let the branches down, and discovered that indeed our tree had a very bad side. One side was missing the branches about 1/3 of the way up the tree. Luckily the tree was going against the wall, so I turned it until the hole was against the wall. When I came back around front I realized that the tree was noticeably crooked. Since the tree was planted, I figured the only thing to do was re-plant it, but not by myself. So that night I had to report to Joe that our tree had a distinctly bad side, was crooked, and might be sparse enough to be described as a Charlie Brown tree. To which he says, "and how much did we pay for this 'proper' Christmas tree?" Um, not quite $100USD. Oh, and did I mention that it does not smell AT ALL? One of the best things about Christmas trees is how they make your whole house smell like a pine forest for weeks. There is nothing better than opening the door to your house and smelling pine. But, in fact, in China, even the proper Christmas trees have no scent to them whatsoever. Sigh.
Joe arrived home from his business trip and I greeted him with the news that the only way to fix the crooked tree was to re-plant it. Being Joe, he said "there's got to be another way." And please feel free to read that as "there's got to be an EASIER way." In the end, his solution was to stick a book under one side of the bucket. And when that tilted it too far to the other side, he stuck a stack of napkins under the other side! Over all this we placed the lovely tree skirt and said a quick prayer that the whole thing wouldn't come toppling down.
Our first quest was for a Christmas tree. We heard that the flower market has Christmas trees, so off we went. Flower markets here have live flowers and plants, as well as fake flowers and plants, and decorative items for purchase. Seemed reasonable. Well, being from Oregon and LOVING the fragrant 7 foot Noble fir tree that we tromp out to the farm and cut down every year, we were not willing to settle for the bush-like evergreens that had been trimmed into the shape of a Christmas tree. Plus, the limbs and needles were so soft that we didn't think ornaments would stay on them. Strike 1.
Next I hear from other friends that a company called Villa Lifestyles usually gets trees in from Denmark every Christmas. I find their email address and contact them. Nope, not this year. Strike 2.
Next, I mention to my friend Sarah, who's Jewish, that we have struck out looking for our Christmas tree. And she says, "Oh, I got mine at the florist in Xintiandi, they had a whole bunch." Uh, thanks. I was struck at that moment that this is such a great description of the expat community in Shanghai. Everybody helping everybody else out, and your key piece of information often coming from the most unlikely source!
So off I trooped to the florist. Sure enough, about 25 trees leaned up against the outside of the shop all wrapped in rope. There was no examining these trees from every angle and making sure there wasn't a "bad" side to the tree. There was only determining the right height, and then deciding if we wanted them to plant the tree or cut it off above the root-ball. Yes, that's right, these Christmas trees still had the root-ball intact. Since we have no Christmas tree stand and my Jewish friend didn't know where to get one of those, I opted for them to plant the tree in a....red bucket. Luckily, the first purchase I had made for the holiday season was a silk tree skirt that some enterprising ex-pat had made and was selling at the Shanghai Expat Association coffee. I hoped it would cover the bucket adequately!
Joe was on a business trip to Taiwan, and I happily reported to him that night that I had found a "proper" Christmas tree and it would be delivered the next day.
And it was, bucket and all. I untied the rope and let the branches down, and discovered that indeed our tree had a very bad side. One side was missing the branches about 1/3 of the way up the tree. Luckily the tree was going against the wall, so I turned it until the hole was against the wall. When I came back around front I realized that the tree was noticeably crooked. Since the tree was planted, I figured the only thing to do was re-plant it, but not by myself. So that night I had to report to Joe that our tree had a distinctly bad side, was crooked, and might be sparse enough to be described as a Charlie Brown tree. To which he says, "and how much did we pay for this 'proper' Christmas tree?" Um, not quite $100USD. Oh, and did I mention that it does not smell AT ALL? One of the best things about Christmas trees is how they make your whole house smell like a pine forest for weeks. There is nothing better than opening the door to your house and smelling pine. But, in fact, in China, even the proper Christmas trees have no scent to them whatsoever. Sigh.
Joe arrived home from his business trip and I greeted him with the news that the only way to fix the crooked tree was to re-plant it. Being Joe, he said "there's got to be another way." And please feel free to read that as "there's got to be an EASIER way." In the end, his solution was to stick a book under one side of the bucket. And when that tilted it too far to the other side, he stuck a stack of napkins under the other side! Over all this we placed the lovely tree skirt and said a quick prayer that the whole thing wouldn't come toppling down.
The holidays in China-part 1: Thanksgiving
For many of you reading this blog, your holiday season in America starts the day after Thanksgiving when Christmas trees, lights, music, and seasonal sales go on in full force. Until I moved to China, I had no idea how much I relied on the day after Thanksgiving to jump-start my own holiday spirit!
To start at the beginning of the season, we were very fortunate to celebrate Thanksgiving here in China with our American friends. We went to Tom & Donna Rampone's house, and with 3 other couples and 5 kids, we feasted on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and apple pie. We all studiously ignored the fact that we were celebrating on Friday instead of Thursday, that the turkey had to be cooked at a local butcher shop because none of our ovens are big enough, and that the turkey cost $100 USD! As I have often said, you can find anything you want in Shanghai, it just depends on what you are willing to pay for it!
But as mentioned above, in America the day after Thanksgiving usually looks very different than the day before due to decorations. Here in China, of course, there is no Thanksgiving. And decorations don't go up, there are no lights in trees lining downtown shopping streets. There are no giant Christmas trees in Pioneer Square, there are no carols playing over the loudspeaker in the grocery store.
About three days after Thanksgiving, the absence of holiday decorations combined with the onset of homesickness made me truly sad. We've been told by friends, and read in books that the first wave of homesickness/depression hits at the 3 month mark. Joe's hit early at 2 months, mine kicked in full-force at the end of month 4, just after Thanksgiving. Suddenly I was pining for the things that drive me crazy at home - like K103 playing all Christmas music from Thanksgiving day until Christmas day, and cheesy TV ads showing unexpected people returning home for the holidays, and decorations in every single store and restaurant, and Christmas movies on TV - even the really bad ones on the Lifetime Channel! I missed how easily accessible Christmas is at home.
So I started thinking, if you don't have the retail industry driving Christmas, what is the actual "start" of the Christmas season? If you are Christian, it is the advent season. Our family goes to church in the States, but I have honestly never paid attention to the advent calendar because of everything else going on! But this is a good segue into church in Shanghai.
There are 2 churches in Pudong (the east side of Shanghai where we live). One is a Catholic church and the other a non-denominational protestant church. We had been to the protestant church only once before, and we returned at the beginning of December in order to celebrate the Christmas season. This church is clearly trying to be something to everyone, and the result is a very odd mix of traditional and contemporary songs, pieces and parts of Lutheran, Baptist, and Presbyterian services. The first time we went it annoyed me to no end because it felt so disjointed (oh, and because there was a guest minister preaching who mentioned, during the sermon, that his book was for sale in the lobby and that he would sign it for you personally when you purchased it!). But when we went during December, I loved this church because they replaced all those odd disjointed pieces with EVERY Christmas song known to man! It was my only source of Christmas music besides what we downloaded from iTunes.
There is something truly unique and special about singing Christmas songs with 300 other people in a church in China. Especially when you realize that outside the walls of the church where you are standing, Christianity, even a belief in God, is a rarity. As we stood in church singing carols, I felt incredibly blessed to be from a country where I can choose my religion, and where religion and a hope for better things, and a ridiculous craving for happy endings is all part of who we are. I didn't really know how much I loved that about my own country and culture until I moved to China.
To start at the beginning of the season, we were very fortunate to celebrate Thanksgiving here in China with our American friends. We went to Tom & Donna Rampone's house, and with 3 other couples and 5 kids, we feasted on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and apple pie. We all studiously ignored the fact that we were celebrating on Friday instead of Thursday, that the turkey had to be cooked at a local butcher shop because none of our ovens are big enough, and that the turkey cost $100 USD! As I have often said, you can find anything you want in Shanghai, it just depends on what you are willing to pay for it!
But as mentioned above, in America the day after Thanksgiving usually looks very different than the day before due to decorations. Here in China, of course, there is no Thanksgiving. And decorations don't go up, there are no lights in trees lining downtown shopping streets. There are no giant Christmas trees in Pioneer Square, there are no carols playing over the loudspeaker in the grocery store.
About three days after Thanksgiving, the absence of holiday decorations combined with the onset of homesickness made me truly sad. We've been told by friends, and read in books that the first wave of homesickness/depression hits at the 3 month mark. Joe's hit early at 2 months, mine kicked in full-force at the end of month 4, just after Thanksgiving. Suddenly I was pining for the things that drive me crazy at home - like K103 playing all Christmas music from Thanksgiving day until Christmas day, and cheesy TV ads showing unexpected people returning home for the holidays, and decorations in every single store and restaurant, and Christmas movies on TV - even the really bad ones on the Lifetime Channel! I missed how easily accessible Christmas is at home.
So I started thinking, if you don't have the retail industry driving Christmas, what is the actual "start" of the Christmas season? If you are Christian, it is the advent season. Our family goes to church in the States, but I have honestly never paid attention to the advent calendar because of everything else going on! But this is a good segue into church in Shanghai.
There are 2 churches in Pudong (the east side of Shanghai where we live). One is a Catholic church and the other a non-denominational protestant church. We had been to the protestant church only once before, and we returned at the beginning of December in order to celebrate the Christmas season. This church is clearly trying to be something to everyone, and the result is a very odd mix of traditional and contemporary songs, pieces and parts of Lutheran, Baptist, and Presbyterian services. The first time we went it annoyed me to no end because it felt so disjointed (oh, and because there was a guest minister preaching who mentioned, during the sermon, that his book was for sale in the lobby and that he would sign it for you personally when you purchased it!). But when we went during December, I loved this church because they replaced all those odd disjointed pieces with EVERY Christmas song known to man! It was my only source of Christmas music besides what we downloaded from iTunes.
There is something truly unique and special about singing Christmas songs with 300 other people in a church in China. Especially when you realize that outside the walls of the church where you are standing, Christianity, even a belief in God, is a rarity. As we stood in church singing carols, I felt incredibly blessed to be from a country where I can choose my religion, and where religion and a hope for better things, and a ridiculous craving for happy endings is all part of who we are. I didn't really know how much I loved that about my own country and culture until I moved to China.
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