To travel anywhere in Asia from mid-November on is to understand that Christmas has reverted to its Roman origins before Christianity ”“ a festival of lights to brighten the darkest days of the year. Christmas trees, angels, Santa Clauses, reindeer, sleighs, garlands, bells and assorted other Christmas paraphernalia festoon streets, shops and hotels from Kyoto to Phnom Penh, creating a blaze of colored lights.
Having recently returned from a trip to a majority Muslim country in Asia, I was pleasantly surprised to hear “O holy night”, “Silent Night”, “Hark the Herald Angels” etc… in hotel restaurants, shopping malls & see lights in the main street with symbols celebrating the birth of Christ. Yes, the Christmas carols can get tired after a while, but the thought of that many Muslims and Buddhists who would otherwise never hear about Christ at least getting some part of the story of Christ, even if it was in a blatantly commercial setting was a symbol of hope to me….
I tried to enter this earlier, but the computer rejected it.
My youngest son is in Beijing now for a year. He is studying in a program run by the Univ. So. Cal for Chinese scholars. This system is set up in Qing Hua University whose classes he attends. T his familiarity gives him the key to the streets, so Christmas eve he found an Anglican cathedral (There’s an Anglican cathedral in Beijing????) and went to the service. Using Skype (sp?)He told me all about it Christmas morning. He said that the place was full, meaning at lest 1500 people. There was little of the usual ritual, the priests were dressed as bishops, in black and red, and there was no communion about which he said that, even if there had been, the Chinese wouldn’t have known what to do. People got up and left or came in constantly through the service. There was a Santa Claus who had a bag of goldpaper wrapped peanuts which he was giving away. Canaan said the Chinese so hunger for the free handout that people all over the congregation were standing up and snapping their fingers to get Santa to come. Are you ready for this? The Alleluia Chorus was sung! In Chinese, of course. He said he didn’t recognize the hymns but they were all in Chinese, naturally, and so he said they sounded very strange. ON the other hand, the chinese, who are naturally very noisy and social, and who have a consuming passion for cellphones, were oddly quiet, he said, and he heard very few cell phones go off. HIs impression was that there were a number of old-time Christians (whom Mao didn’t X for some reason) but that most of the people there was newcomers to Christianity, and he said they seemed eager to know what was going on here.
For China, this is extraordinary. On the other hand, the Chinese have been Bob Cratchitt’ed for long long centuries, and one can see why the “good news” would strike their ears forcefully and most positively. Larry
I would prefer “Christmas, Aslan Style.”