Merry Christmas from China

You’ve heard of that song “Deck the Halls” right? Everyone has, you have to hear it every December (or November if you’re extremely festive).

Well despite China not majorly celebrating Christmas, we have certainly “decked the halls” this year (well, of floor 7 at least). With a paper chain that takes up the whole corridor, and decorations adorning the doors of many of the Scot’s rooms, as well as the competition of who can have the best decorated room. We’ve certainly brought Christmas to China.

It wasn’t until mid-November, when I was seeing Snapchat videos of my friends at Christmas light switch-on’s or taking photos of the Christmas decorations where they live, that I realised how little Christmas will come to China. As naïve as it is I guess I was just so used to Winter being a certain way that when I realised there would be no lights, music or…. Anything to be honest, it really dawned on me the cultural differences between the East and West. After all there are events in China that I know about, but don’t get excited over. The Mid-Autumn festival and Chinese New Year are a massive deal here, and although that might be as exciting as Christmas to a Chinese person they don’t overly phase me in comparison. I’d imagine it is the same with their reaction to Christmas, even the Koreans on our floor were getting really confused at the constant Christmas music, cards, and decorations; they just thought we were hilarious.

Our first taste of Christmas was at the St Andrew’s ball on the 25th of November, a celebration of the Scottish holiday in the China World Hotel in Beijing. Inside the hotel was the biggest Christmas tree I have ever seen accompanied by a grand staircase adorning tinsel and lights, it was beautiful. But that wasn’t even scratching the surface; the ball itself was from 6pm-3am, the whole night was filled with a free bar as well as constant top ups of champagne and wine (waiters would never let you go with a half empty glass), a 5-course dinner, and hours of ceilidh dancing (my feet were practically broken trying to walk up the stairs of our hotel afterwards). Another perk was each table had a bottle of whisky: which was actually brewed in Aberlour! Aberlour is 20 minutes from my hometome. (Moray follows me everywhere I swear) The best part of the night though was the breakfast at 1am because…there was bacon and toast! (Being in China makes you excited about the little things from the west). So all in all the Ball was a fantastic way to end November (we even took the opportunity to explore Beijing that weekend, going to Pearl Market and Tiannamen Square too) and give us a wee feel of Christmas spirit to kickstart us into December!

Onto December now, and I am not joking when I say December 1st was the most festive day I’ve ever seen. That morning I walked to class with my Christmas playlist on, and as soon as the scholars were back at lunchtime we decided it was time to get the Christmas decorations out (many of our parents had been sending over packages in November to be ready). So the Christmas music was blaring, the decorations were up, and we even got everyone including some of our Chinese language partners to get a paper chain built for the whole hall!

After the initial buzz though things did settle. The rest of the month was mainly filled with travel planning for January and February and exam preparation. At the beginning of the month I participated in a Chinese painting culture class every Monday to present to the University examiners which allowed me to get back into art (something I’ve missed since coming here) and meet more international students from different classes. On the 8th December Tianjin was showing off it’s vibrant nightlife again as many of the international students enjoyed a night out to a local nightclub to see Steve Aoki (One of the top 10 DJ’s in the world!). He even threw several cakes (his trademark way to end a show is throwing cake at the crowd) at the Scottish scholars! So it’s fair to say we went home that night with smiles on our faces and covered in cake (which personally tasted so good it shouldn’t have been thrown).

But it was still December so it wasn’t uncommon to hear Christmas music or to see someone hanging up some new decorations here and there. What’s odd is that it’s not even just Christmas in general I was feeling nostalgic about, it was the entire build-up: decorating the house with my mum, the usual family arguments that come with that, the lights getting turned on in my town, Christmas coffees at Costa and Starbucks with my friends, and (as bad as it is) I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Strictly Come Dancing coming onto TV (X factor used to be on that list but it’s awful now). Being in China I thought it would be the major things that would have me missing home but I’ve been finding it’s really odd things that I’m getting nostalgic about, and I’m missing the tiniest things that made life in Scotland… well life in Scotland (if anyone wants to send me one bag of Salt & Vinegar McCoy’s that’d be appreciated). [Quick Side Note: That’s not to say I’m not enjoying life here! But Christmas has definitely brought around the first bought of homesickness for me, and it’s not crippling tears and sadness at the fact my mum isn’t a room away shouting at me to make her a cup of tea; it’s just a lingering feeling of nostalgia for every normality I had before. Being 4,000 miles away at this age with no trips home each weekend (an occurrence I’ve noticed happens way too often with Uni students back home), is a massive challenge, but it’s important that when the inevitable longing for home comes about you use it to motivate you further and make all the people you love and miss proud of what you’re doing]. 

Back to the Christmas-sy stuff now!

25th December. The big day itself.

Now because China doesn’t celebrate Christmas we don’t get a day off, but many of our teachers understood the cultural importance and had booked us off! 谢谢老师! When you’re spending a day that’s meant to be for family and “coming together”, being 4,000 miles away from your loved ones can be an emotional time so the scholars spent the majority of the day together. Christmas Eve was split between several people heading out and several staying here. So it was the job of the gracious hosts of Room 708 (Alex and I) to host a Christmas movie night/sleepover; so we enjoyed watching movies until about 3am and hosting quite a few people in our room. (Cheers to Owen and Calum for lending their mattresses to the floor).

Then on Christmas morning we ordered a McDonald’s breakfast and by lunchtime everyone gathered in the hall, Christmas music blaring, and opened their gifts. We even got visited by our language partners who brought us some presents and fruit. That night the scholars parted ways again to head to different places for dinner, I headed to an Indian restaurant with 7 other scholars and we were entertained by Christmas crackers Ana brought, that had musical bells in them! (Everything in the restaurant must’ve hated us as we tried to master Jingle Bells). The rest of the night was followed by Christmas celebrations with all 22 scholars, and reminiscing of home, I even called my family for the… 3rd time (I’m not the best at remembering to call). I can say Christmas was one of the weirdest days yet, it felt like it should be special and for a moment it felt like “Yeah, this is home, this is Christmas” but then it felt like a weird normal day again? I could never explain it but I know I’ll never have a Christmas like it again.

For New Year some of the scholars headed to Beijing, but a group of us remained in Tianjin to spend the weekend with our Korean and American friends who sadly left the week after. So we spent the night with them and early morning on January 1st waved goodbye to our friend Maggie who was heading home to Michigan, and then realised… exam season is here… (but we’ll leave that for the next blog post).

"Travelling the world" - Claire's Brief Guide

Rule 9: Christmas is a time for family, but make it special by sharing it with the people you have around you.

Rule 10: Travel plans and Exam studying are never good things to leave until last minute…

So to everyone back home, I hope you’ve all had a good Christmas and that 2018 is a good year for you (to the people back in Elgin and at EHS, you’re getting me back in July what more could you want? haha)

And although I’ll get there 8 hours before you (time differences are fun), I’ll see you in 2018…

But ‘til then, 再见

-Claire 可兰