"Commercial" Christmas comes to China
The song that Chinese retailers are singing these days is:
"I'm dreaming of a PINK Christmas...":
One might wonder why a country with a Communist government that promotes atheism and discourages religion would permit such a display of Christmas. As I wandered today through the big department store across the road from where I live, listening to Christmas carols and holiday songs like "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night", "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", etc. and seeing that the stores were displaying things like these, I really felt like I was back in Toronto:
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5. Merry Christmas is printed on the window.
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Can you imagine Santa in a sleigh being pulled by 8 flying Panda Bears?
Or better yet, dragons...
When I traveled to Hong Kong on business it was always interesting to see the light displays covering every building in HK.
Never mind the "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings"stuff, everywhere it's "Merry Christmas".
As you've seen in many of my photos, the Chinese light up their buildings as if electricity costs nothing, and in the winter they sit in their homes in overcoats rather than turn on the heat (which is usually by electric heaters).
Hong Kong belonged to the British for over a hundred years, didn't it? I remember when the British handed it over to the Chinese in 1997. I was working at Maybelline/L'Oreal in the international customer relations dept (it's not as glamorous as it sounds). My job was to check the orders for mascara, rouge, lipstick, foundation, etc that came in over the fax to make sure we got the orders right.
Boy did the people working there make a big deal about make-up! I joked that the world would blow up if China didn't get their mascara order on time. But something I realized after I quit working there...China was becoming very consumeristic. They love stuff. Stuff. Just like Americans
Skin whiteners sell like hotcakes here - there are rows of brands of them in the stores.