Christmas in Bejing by former Observer journalist Paul Crowney

Stop the carols. Something's not quite right with Christmas this year. On the positive side, I haven't been bombarded with the consumer nightmare of shops covered with tinsel from the beginning of November; my head isn't ready to explode from hearing Slade, Cliff Richard and Wham; and I won't be spending time with hyperactive children or an aunt who has knitted me yet another evil jumper....

On the down side, there's no sign of Mum's roast turkey with all the trimmings, and precious little chance of a fat bloke in a red and white robe squeezing down the chimney with a bulging sack on his back.

As an ex-pat facing my first festive season in the capital of China, I could be forgiven for expecting the worst at a time of year when the cultural gulf between east and west can assume Grand Canyon proportions.

I arrived in the city at the end of July, on a one-year contract with national newspaper, China Daily. I didn't know what to expect, from simple things like using chopsticks, to learning the language and living under a Communist regime.

Surprisingly, after a few weeks it was fairly easy - but now I face my biggest challenge: how to celebrate Christmas in China. I mean, do they know it's Christmas time at all?

Christmas, as a rule, is not celebrated here. The Chinese - some 1.3 billion - are mainly influenced by Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Christians comprise about one per cent of the population.

However, as with everything in China at the moment, the door to the West has been opened just a crack allowing the Chinese to take a peek and attempt to emulate - all in the name of profit (there are some 150,000 ex-pats in the city - that's a big market). But the result is never quite right. Christmas - floundering between religion and capitalism - is therefore no exception.

Take Santa Claus - a unique sight in the city - welcoming shoppers into a supermarket in Chaoyang District. He's got the red and white suit, the black boots and the white beard - but he's five feet tall, and weighs less than the average Grand National jockey. A child older than seven would need this Santa to sit on his knee.

Ten years ago, Christmas would not have been acknowledged. Today, if you ask around, it is possible to find market stalls selling festive trees and decorations, Santa costumes and spray-on snow. Walking up the first dozen floors of the block of flats where I live, there's not one indication December 25 is upon us, but reach floors 13 and 14 - the ex-pat area - and it's a grotto Santa's elves would feel at home in. Certain Christmas essentials are still elusive, however, so there'll be no pulling crackers this year, or kissing under the mistletoe.

Until December 8, I hadn't really thought about Christmas. I knew I would be at work on the Big Day, and without my nieces' excitement or present buying panic I could happily have awakened on Christmas morning as if it were any other day.

Then it snowed. I got that tingle. I tried to repress it - "think humbug" - but it was too late. I'd crossed over to the white side, and China wasn't going to hold me back from having a traditional festive season.

It got bad - I bought a red Santa's hat to wear round the flat, I clicked my chopsticks in tune with Jingle Bells, and even bought a James Bond movie, Mary Poppins and Escape to Victory which won't be interrupted by the Queen's speech.

In Beijing, opportunities are always there to live the life you've left behind, and not go "Chinese". So if you want your fry-up, toad-in-the-hole or beans on toast, then the goods can be found. But you'll pay for it.

I eat out twice a day - sumptuous Chinese meals of meat and vegetables for next to nothing. But if I want Christmas dinner in one of the large hotels or "British" bars it will be ridiculously expensive.

And this is where I must draw the line, ignoring some of the British traditions, and welcoming in the new Beijing Christmas.

When else will I have the chance to spend Christmas Day in such a city? On Christmas Eve night, I can see in the big day being merry in a Chinese bar with a hysterical cat theme, listening to awful Chinese pop, munching on locust and scorpion snacks, while drinking petrol-like Baijou; or maybe I'll join the crowd in Tiananmen Square, behind the Forbidden City; or relax in a warm tea house overlooking Houhai Lake, frozen over with skaters circling on it.

Imagine spending Christmas Day having a snowball fight on the Great Wall; walking inside the incredible Summer Palace; sitting in the Temple of Heaven to watch Chinese practice tai chi, walk their birds, improve their martial arts and play badminton.

Or how about cycling through the city - one of eight million bikers making a journey that day in Beijing - passing through the 700-year-old hutong (alleyways), taking in the everyday sights of old men playing board games in the street, dodging around people doing their washing and cooking and saying "hi" with gusto as people shout enthusiastically across the street at a westerner.

I can stop to watch TV on the path with 30 other people, peer at the line of five men getting their hair cut in the street, and another over the road having a massage, while enjoying the smell and the noise of the street markets where snacks of congealed blood and ox penis are on offer - thankfully, so are noodles and rice.

Christmas is about feeling good. This works for me.

I'm going to miss Christmas at home. I would perhaps have spent it in the Lake District, away from London where I wiled away most of my spare time.

There'll be times when it'll hit me: not being with my girlfriend, who'll be in New York; no Christmas morning present opening with the family: no comforting familiarity.

However, I still won't miss Slade's, Cliff Richard's and Wham's Christmas songs. And as for "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" - I think they do.

December 19, 2001 13:00