I was quite surprised the first time I experienced the western (commercial) Christmas holiday traditions around China. Christmas songs at the stores… snowflakes and snowmen on the windows… Santa and the reindeer… special seasonal drinks at Starbucks… sales at the department stores and special deals for dinners.

The word ‘commercial’ is key. Christmas in China is a co-opted holiday – a Hallmark occasion. We do this too, all the time. The 17th Century feast of St. Patrick had quite little to do, one suspects, with green beer, shamrock shakes, and leprechauns. We do not treat it as a real holiday (time off, stores closed), and one wonders what the devout Irish might think of the peculiar revelry.

So, too, Christmas in China.