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【中文标题】圣诞节在中国的八个有趣现象
【原文标题】Eight fascinating facts about Christmas in China
【登载媒体】华盛顿邮报
【原文作者】Max Fisher
【原文链接】http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/24/seven-fascinating-facts-about-christmas-in-china/
西安，表演者打扮成圣诞老人的模样，演奏中国传统乐器，庆祝圣诞节。
我曾经有一个朋友，在美国居住多年之后即将回到中国，我带她去弗吉尼亚州的殖民地威廉斯堡旅游。在她的要求下，我们走近一家专门卖圣诞节装饰品的商店。她在摆弄那些圣诞节饰品和刻字的标牌时，我问她中国的圣诞节是什么样子的。她叹了口气，边查看一个陶瓷雪人边说：“太商业化了。”
在中国，圣诞节连同基督教曾经被禁止，它呈现出一种迷人的中国矛盾性：世界上首屈一指的共产主义、非宗教国家的一个商业化色彩极浓、广受欢迎的节日。这里圣诞节的历史很短，但是就像这个国家几个世纪以来所吸收并且同化的外国习俗一样，圣诞节也已经发展出了中国的特色。这些特色颇有启发性，很迷人，有时候也很令人困惑——尤其是对我这样的外国人来说。下面就是几个重要的特点。
1，人们对待圣诞节的方式与对待圣帕特里克节和情人节的方式一样。这是一个放松心情，与朋友外出聚会的日子，而不是像西方人一样与家人团聚。典型的庆祝方式包括看电影、唱卡拉OK，或者购物。《中国日报》说圣诞节前夜是商家一年中销售量最高的一天。年轻人通常找一些浪漫的事情来做，他们喜欢去滑冰或者游乐园。
2，中国的基督教徒在度过西方节日时，依然在面临严格的管制。当大部分中国城市居民在庆祝一个过度商业化、没有宗教色彩的圣诞节时，这个国家的6800万基督教徒（占总人口5％）的日子并不好过。政府严格限制宗教行为，像唱圣歌这种行为也有时会被禁止。现在比以前要好一些，“家庭教堂”虽被官方禁止，但一般也不会有人理会。当政府在90年代允许出现一个商业化的圣诞节时，有意和无意之中，淡化了西方的宗教色彩。从某种程度上说，圣诞节在中国越受欢迎，它的基督教意义就越淡薄。
3，在中国曾经出现过“对圣诞节宣战”。一些民族主义者谴责西方利用节日作为帝国主义势力的工具。下面是中国记者Helen Gao一篇有关中国圣诞节文章的摘录：
当一些美国人在努力提升这个节日的宗教含义时，中国一批抨击圣诞节的人士在反对让西方文化污染中国文明。2006年圣诞节之后，来自北京大学、清华大学和其它几所名校的10位博士后联合发布了一封公开信，呼吁中国人抵制圣诞节，拒绝“西方软势力”的入侵。他们说：“〔庆祝圣诞节的中国人〕在做西方传教士在100年前想做而没有做成的事情……中国人要警惕圣诞节，推崇我们自己的传统文化。”
4，价格昂贵、用玻璃纸包装的“圣诞节苹果”是常见的礼物。这是因为中文“苹果”的发音与“平安夜”相似。苹果一般用漂亮的玻璃纸包起来，印有节日祝福的语言。比如这个苹果就有圣诞老人的头像和“Merry X-Mas”字样。
5，谁是基督？我们只认识圣诞老人（和他的“姐妹们”）。一些年轻人——一般是女孩子——会在购物中心里打扮成圣诞老人的“精灵助手”，美国人对这样的场景颇为熟悉。在中国，这些打扮成精灵的女孩子们似乎失去了其原有的意义，她们被认为是圣诞老人的朋友或者“姐妹”。而且圣诞老人经常成群结队地出现。下面是武汉一个商场里的圣诞代表团。
6，在中国，圣诞老人经常以演奏萨克斯风的形象出现。这个节日的吉祥物广为人知，但是不知为什么，他的形象总是在演奏一个比尔•克林顿风格的萨克斯风。有时候也会演奏小号或者法国长号。我尝试过很多方法都无法找到其中的原因，如果你有任何见解，欢迎分享。下面是北京一个具有代表性的圣诞老人。
7，中国官方媒体自夸，中国让美国人有机会过上圣诞节。这倒是没错：在中国政府迫害基督教徒之后不久，其最大的媒体窗口开始吹嘘，没有中国，就没有圣诞节。《人民日报》在星期一发表文章称：“美国同胞们，圣诞节到了，起床享受一杯咖啡吧，顺便看看中国的圣诞老人给你带来了什么礼物。”文章认为，没有中国的出口，西方不可能有机会庆祝圣诞节，我们应当利用节日的机会感谢中国的制造业。文章最后说：“在这个圣诞节的早晨，当你起床享受咖啡的时候，要心怀感激地接受礼物。”
8，19世纪，中国一名基督教领袖自称基督的兄弟，引发了一场内战。洪秀全生于1814年，作为一名传教士，在中国传播基督教。他自认为是上帝的次子，上帝命令他惩罚中国亵渎宗教的行为。洪发动了一场运动，称为太平天国，起义席卷了中国南方大部分地区。1850年到1864年的运动又称为太平天国起义，最终导致2000万人丧生，与一战死亡人数相当。我并不是想说明中国在今天有理由迫害基督教徒，但或许你可以了解，为什么宗教行为让政府如此敏感。
原文：
Performers dressed as Santa Claus play traditional Chinese instruments as part of a Christmas celebration in Xian. (China Photos — Getty Images)
I once took a friend, about to return home to China after several years in the United States, on what I thought would be a uniquely American tour of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. We stopped in, on her request, at one of the specialized stores that sells only Christmas-related knickknacks. As she poked through the Santa ornaments and engraved placards, I asked her what Christmas was like in China. She sighed, inspecting a porcelain Frosty the Snowman. “It’s too commercial.”
Christmas, long banned in China along with Christianity itself, is a fascinating Chinese contradiction: a booming business and ultra-popular holiday in the world’s leading Communist and officially non-religious state. The Christmas tradition is quite young there, but just like so many foreign customs that China has for centuries absorbed and made its own, the holiday has already developed its own Chinese characteristics. They are revealing, fascinating, and at points quite baffling – for an outsider like myself, anyway. Here are just a few.
1. Christmas is treated more like Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day. That is, it’s a lighthearted day for going out and being with friends, not for staying in with family, as we do in the West. Typical ways to celebrate include seeing a movie, going to a karaoke bar, or shopping. China Daily says Christmas Eve is the biggest shopping day of the year. Young couples often treat it as a romantic day. Ice skating and amusement parks are popular destinations.
2. Chinese Christians still face restrictions against a Western-style holiday. As huge numbers of urban Chinese celebrate a commercialized and religiously sterilized version of Christmas, the country’s 68 million Christians (about 5 percent of the population) have a tougher time. Religious practice is tightly regulated by the government, with acts such as caroling variously forbidden or allowed. It’s better than it used to be; informal “house churches” are officially forbidden but typically tolerated. When the government began allowing the more commercialized version of Christmas to prosper starting in the 1990s, it had the effect, deliberate or not, of overshadowing the Western-style version, reducing the holiday’s religious connotations. In a way, the more popular Christmas gets in China, the less Christian it becomes.
3. There is a “war on Christmas” in China. Some nationalist critics have accused the West of using the holiday as a tool of foreign imperialism. This is from Chinese journalist Helen Gao’s great article on Christmas’s evolution in China:
While some in America fight to resurface the holiday’s spiritual significance, Christmas-bashers in China warn against allowing Western culture to contaminate Chinese civilization. Shortly before Christmas in 2006, ten post-doctoral students from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and other elite colleges penned an open letter asking Chinese people to boycott Christmas and resist the invasion of “western soft power.” They warned, “[Christmas celebrators in China] are doing what western missionaries dreamed to do but didn’t succeed in doing 100 years ago.” The letter added, “Chinese people need to treat Christmas cautiously, and support the dominance of our own culture.”
4. Fancy, cellophane-wrapped ‘Christmas apples’ are a common gift. This is because the word “apple” apparently sounds like “Christmas eve” in Mandarin. The apples might bear fancy wrapping and be printed with holiday messages, such as this apple bearing Santa Claus’s likeness and the words “Merry X-Mas.”
Cellophane-wrapped apples are a popular Christmas gift. (Chinese government Web portal shm.com.cn)
5. Jesus who? It’s all about Santa (and his “sisters”). Americans are familiar with the shopping mall practice of having young workers, typically women, dress up as Santa’s “helper elves.” In China, the fact that these costumed women are supposed to be elves is apparently lost in translation sometimes, with the women simply known as Santa’s friends or “sisters.” And Santas often travel in packs. Here’s a delegation at a mall in the city of Wuhan:
6. In China, Santa Claus is often shown playing the saxophone. The holiday’s mascot is well-known, although for some reason he is portrayed, with startling frequency, as jamming out on a sax, Bill Clinton-style. Sometimes he is playing a trumpet or French horn. I have tried and failed to find the roots of this tradition; please chime in with a comment if you have any insights. Here’s a representative image from Beijing:
7. Chinese state media now brags that China makes American Christmas possible. That’s right: not so long after the Chinese government persecuted Christians, sometimes violently, its largest media outlet is boasting that Christmas would not be possible without China. The state-run People’s Daily on Monday announces, “American fellows, it is Christmas time, a time to wake up, have a strong cup of coffee, and see what gifts a Chinese Santa Claus really delivers.” The article argues that the West could not celebrate Christmas without China’s exports and that we should spend the holiday expressing gratitude for Chinese manufacturing. The article concludes, “This Christmas morning, when you wake up and smell this couple of coffee, accept your gifts with gratitude.”
8. A 19th century Chinese Christian leader claimed to be Jesus’s brother, then started a civil war. A man named Hong Xiuquan, born in 1814 as missionaries were spreading Christianity in China, had visions that led him to believe that he was the second son of God, who had commanded him to ride China of sacrilegious practices. Hong formed a movement called the Heavenly Kingdom, which rose up and came to control vast swathes of southern China. The civil war of 1850 to 1864, also known as the Taiping Rebellion, ultimately killed perhaps 20 million people, or approximately as many people as World War One. I don’t want to suggest that this justifies China’s treatment of Christians today, but perhaps it can give you a sense for why the religion can make the government so skittish.
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狗仔卡
发表于 2012-12-27 11:42
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发表于 2012-12-27 13:07
