So I will share with you a little bit of Chinese and also how it relates
to Christmas. About a week ago one of my
Chinese co-workers was asking what some of the traditions in America are for
the holiday season. I proceeded to explain
what most people do but at the same time let her know that Americans come from
all over so it does vary by family and background. She understood but was still wanting more of
an answer and told me that I had left something out. Next she asks about giving apples on
Christmas Eve to friends. She understood this is what happens in America and I
kind of laughed and said I had never heard of such a tradition. She goes on to explain that is what happens
here in China. This conversation was a
few days before Christmas Eve and so I was definitely curious how big this
apple tradition would be.
The day before Christmas Eve a lot more apple vendors started appearing
along the street. It is very common to
sell items (fruits, vegetables, street food, etc.) from a cart along the street
and it is perfectly safe to eat these items.
Not only were there more apples but I even saw special boxes to put your
apple inside, and even apples with Chinese characters written on them. Most likely the characters written on the
apples were wishing the friend happy holidays.
So it is very common to give good friends an apple on Christmas Eve in
China. I think a big reason this does
happen because of these two different words: ping guo3 (apple) and ping
an ye4 (Christmas Eve). The part
that is underlined comes from the same character in Mandarin. I have written
the words in Pinyin which is the transcribing of Mandarin pronunciations of
Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet.
I will go into greater details of how this helps later but for now a
short little introduction showing why it is common to give apples in China for
Christmas Eve (at least in Mandarin speaking locations.) Simply put the word apple and Christmas Eve
sound really similar to each other.
I ended up getting one apple from a class of mine that I had on
Christmas Eve. No fancy box but a nice
big red apple. Besides apples China
doesn’t really celebrate Christmas. Sure
this whole entire month Christmas music and Christmas decorations have been up
at most of the stores. Besides that
though not much else happened. I had to
work both days because it is simply a normal day for most people. Actually on Christmas Eve at my school we had
a Christmas party for some of the students.
They had to buy a ticket and it simply was different Christmas
activities such as caroling, Christmas arts and crafts, and painting. I have an evening class on that night at a
local business so I was late for the Christmas party for the kids but that
actually was better. That meant I could
go into any of the classrooms and I wasn’t in charge of any of them and simple
was able to bounce around to see the different activities. Besides the Christmas party on the weekend
before Christmas we had the students write on little Christmas cards which we
hung on a tree in the lobby of the school and also gave them all a small
gift.
After work the other foreign teachers and I went out to dinner. No real Christmas dinner but at the same time
what is truly Christmas dinner? I think
it does vary from family to family and isn’t particular like on
Thanksgiving. We ended up getting some
goose, fried rice, and various other Chinese dishes. It was pretty good. Then later that night we did a white elephant
gift exchange and so we all ended up with some present. I received some
decorative chopsticks that were bought up in Beijing.
Whether it be apples, egg nog, tamales, gingerbread, or any other
special food for the holidays hopefully it was a good time had by all. Also not too much longer for a new year. New Year’s Day is a national holiday in China
so I will have that day off but right back to work with weekend classes
starting on Friday this weekend. Not
much of a break and so nothing major planned. Below are some of the funnier cards that some students wrote. I will write later.
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| Christmas Tree in front of a mall |
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| Tree decorated with lights at apartment complex |
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