Even all the myths and traditions of Christmas are unknown here. Chinese people call santa "Father Christmas" or "Christmas Old Man"- they don't even call him "Santa Claus". The girl I tutor never heard of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or the North Pole- well she knows what the North Pole is, but she doesn't believe that's where Santa and his elves live. It was a really interesting experience to try to explain the story of the birth of Jesus in the manger and the three wise men to a Chinese friend.
Since we work at a "Foreign Language School", our school held a Christmas pageant. My American friends and I were made to sing a song in Chinese in front of the whole school. Our singing debut made the front page of the local newspaper, the Zhangjiagang Daily:
(PS. Thanks for the Christmas hat with the Mickey Mouse ears, Mom. It was a big hit with the 2nd graders)
Our Christmas pageant was Friday the 23rd. Later that night we got even more into the Christmas spirit, when the club we went to was decked out with decorations, including a fake snow machine:
The best part about my Christmas experience in China, though, was attending church. More or less, my impression is that the Chinese government doesn't allow churches for Chinese people. This isn't a big deal for most Chinese people though, because they are not Christian. There are a few churches in bigger cities for Chinese people, but churches must be registered with the government. Proselytizing is not allowed.
That being said, there are no Chinese churches in ZJG, however, since there is a large population of Korean people in our city, there are two Korean churches.
There are a lot of Koreans in ZJG because they own and run a lot of the factories outside the city. The school I teach at has a Korean department, and I teach a 4 Korean students English everyday. The mother of one of my students heard my friends and I were looking for a church, and she invited us to attend her church for the Christmas Day service.
The "church" was a couple of small rooms on the 4th floor of a random building, nestled in behind some restaurants off the main road. There were no signs, because the Chinese government doesn't allow them.
Of course it doesn't matter where you worship, but I've never been to a service outside of a church, so it was an interesting experience. Although there are no signs outside, the church managed to have stained glass put it. I wonder if they smuggled it in, haha (see picture below).
The congregation was small, but very friendly. The pastor knew some foreigners would be attending ahead of time, so he had his sermon translated. Most of the Koreans know some English, but the service was in Korean. The children did a couple performances, they even played the bells. The pastor played the saxophone, another man played the accordion, and some other foreign teachers from the Philippines did a dance. It was a lovely service, and made me feel like I was home. I forgot to mention, its a Methodist church- which is what I attend at home. We were even invited to stay and eat with the congregation afterwards:
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