I thought I lived and worked in a Communist Country yet here is a 45 foot “fake” Christmas tree that is being erected in front of our office in Shanghai Times Square. The US was founded on two polarized ideologies that create an amazing balance: Religiosity and Capitalism. The Christmas tree is the epitome of the symbolic manifestation of both of these paradigms. Yet here it is standing tall and proud in all it’s majestic glory smack dab in the middle of Communist China and in Shanghai’s high rent district. In fact, Christmas decorations in Shanghai started going up the moment the first leaf of autumn hit the ground at the end of October. And it’s not just a tree or wreath here of there, it’s huge over the top gaudy decorations on steroids.
There’s this mall by our apartment that is ridiculous. The whole front of the shopping mall is a Winter Wonderland Gateway with the main stairway entry that is about 40 wide and about 30 steps up painted with dancing reindeer and snowmen. There’s bells, snowflakes and shit hanging all over the place. As I walk through (this is the case in any mall or shopping area now), no one speaks a lick of English but you have George Michael’s “Last Christmas” or Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” blasting over the intercom system. Like I said it’s ridiculous.
The Chinese are confused. Many are caught between the two worlds of Egalitarianism and Uber Consumerism so I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to my of my co-workers about this just to get a sense of what they think. Most of them have no idea what all this mean and simple say “well it’s a big Western shopping holiday”. Personally, after living here and seeing how materialistic and how obsessed everyone is with money, I think the Communist Party should stop kidding themselves and just embrace Capitalism. In fact there's a joke that the Shanghainese say about themselves and it goes: "a man is considered a pervert if he loves women over money". If the Party just accepts the people's wishes at least there would be some Intellectual honestly in all this misunderstood decadence.
There’s this mall by our apartment that is ridiculous. The whole front of the shopping mall is a Winter Wonderland Gateway with the main stairway entry that is about 40 wide and about 30 steps up painted with dancing reindeer and snowmen. There’s bells, snowflakes and shit hanging all over the place. As I walk through (this is the case in any mall or shopping area now), no one speaks a lick of English but you have George Michael’s “Last Christmas” or Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” blasting over the intercom system. Like I said it’s ridiculous.
The Chinese are confused. Many are caught between the two worlds of Egalitarianism and Uber Consumerism so I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to my of my co-workers about this just to get a sense of what they think. Most of them have no idea what all this mean and simple say “well it’s a big Western shopping holiday”. Personally, after living here and seeing how materialistic and how obsessed everyone is with money, I think the Communist Party should stop kidding themselves and just embrace Capitalism. In fact there's a joke that the Shanghainese say about themselves and it goes: "a man is considered a pervert if he loves women over money". If the Party just accepts the people's wishes at least there would be some Intellectual honestly in all this misunderstood decadence.
