Finding Christmas in Chinese Television Dramas
When I was growing up in Guangzhou in the 1990s, Christmas was only a foreign holiday. There weren’t decorations visible in the streets, except for lights on a few large hotels. The Pearl River runs through the heart of the city and on the north side of the river sat the American consulate. The city’s most famous hotel and the one most popular for foreign visitors was the White Swan Hotel, located adjacent to the American consulate. The White Swan Hotel always put the city’s most elaborate Christmas lights on the side of its building, which could be seen from miles away across the river. When I think of Christmas now, I still think of those Christmas lights I saw when crossing the Pearl River as a child. Now, more than ten years later, the popularity of Christmas has spread across China. This year, many of my Chinese elementary school friends posted pictures online of decorating trees in their offices. Christmas has not become an official government holiday in mainland China, but it has entered the cultural and commercial mainstream of Chinese society.
