Perhaps only after watching this recent YouTube video clip will people in Europe come to know how popular today Christmas is in Asian nations:

<<Sexy Beijing, Sexy Christmas>> at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auwrzHnRGCU by Danwei TV.

No wonder some Ph.D students from China's elite universities made big headlines around the world by "saying no to Christmas". Hence the so-called "Christmas boycott" petition.




A Santa Claus model blowing the trumpet is seen in front of the Oriental Pearl Tower at the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai December 19, 2006. [newsphoto]


According to the petition, "occidental culture has been more like storms sweeping through the country rather than mild showers," and in China, "when Christmas nears, shopping centres, restaurants and hotels have decorated Christmas trees, Christmas messages flood the Internet, newspapers, TV and radio programs, hundreds of millions SMS text messages are sent by cell phones, it becomes unusually hard to reserve a restaurant, friends exchange Christmas greetings when they meet each other, and people revel until very late on Christmas Eve."

The petition claims that the ancient oriental nation of China is shifting towards becoming a western society. So these PhDs jointly publicized a petition on the Internet, calling on netizens, especially the young, to be less excited about the exotic holiday.

The authors of the petition claim that celebrating Christmas is a personal decision, but most Chinese join in the celebrations without clearly knowing the origin of the occasion.

One of the reasons for this, according to the authors is a failure on the part of the government to maintain Chinese traditions while encouraging the economy. Retailers and other business people are also to blame for using the festival to boost business. On Christmas Eve, people must wait for seats at nearly every restaurant in Beijing and other cities in China.

It seems the petition will not receive much support, judging from the large number of critical responses on the Internet. And it's likely it will be drowned out in the mainstream, where Christmas and Valentine's Day are becoming more popular than the Spring Festival among youngsters. On the same day another report from the Henan Business News in central China's Henan Province said a commercial chamber was planning a nude running event on the evening of December 24, and had received more than 1,700 applications to join in the activity.
Just like Christmas, western cultures and festivals have become part of people's daily lives in China. This is a fact of truth, a sign of the unimaginable fast pace of changes in every aspect in this amazing country, and part of China's recent century of Westernization process. To me, this process is simply irreversible.

Let those petitions rest.


(For further reference to this theme on the popular YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBeuBwH8_Bo)