Who wouldn't love a holiday based on big parties and gift-giving (to non-Christians), especially for such a capitalist place as Hong Kong?

Hi Dan. I'm a Hong Kong resident and getting ready for yet another HK Christmas with my family. The answer to your question is that Hong Kong people (and Japan and Korea--lived there too) are compulsive shoppers. Shopping in Hong Kong is the national past-time. There's no shame in being materialistic during the holidays here.

You were lucky to be here during these few months. For 80% of the year, Hong Kong is unbelievably muggy--worse than the most humid days of August in Chicago. Since so many HK people live in very small apartments with their families, air conditioned shopping malls are one of the few places that people can go year-round to escape the heat and be with their friends. Malls are a refuge of sorts--as odd as that sounds--and that means more shopping.

Lastly, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and HKers don't really have the same sense of what is gaudy or tacky as do Westerners. They really don't. They are far less critical of art than Westerners and I think this has to do with the Confucian heritage and its lack of emphasis on the importance of the arts.

For Americans, Las Vegas is the height of tacky. Yet over the course of the past few years, I have watched every city I go to in China turn into a cheezy, town of neon lights. Their artisitc sensibilities are just different than ours.

I'm glad you enjoyed our city. We love it here and wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

I live in Beijing and while we here in the capital certainly haven't quite caught up to Hong Kong's Christmas specitcal, it's not from a lack of trying.

My take is that it's really just an excuse for retailers to do something different and for people to have a party. There isn't much Jesus involved- though even that seems to be changing suprisingly quickly here. (I just had a meeting with a perspective designer who spent the whole dinner talking about her new Christian faith)

For the rest though, I think it's something like St. Patrick's day- they couldn't care less about the history, but it's a lot of fun and who doesn't mind another excuse to go out and drink too much with the rest of the city. Every hotel and bar worth it's lease is having a party this weekend.

I live in Beijing and while we here in the capital certainly haven't quite caught up to Hong Kong's Christmas specitcal, it's not from a lack of trying.

My take is that it's really just an excuse for retailers to do something different and for people to have a party. There isn't much Jesus involved- though even that seems to be changing suprisingly quickly here. (I just had a meeting with a perspective designer who spent the whole dinner talking about her new Christian faith)

For the rest though, I think it's something like St. Patrick's day- they couldn't care less about the history, but it's a lot of fun and who doesn't mind another excuse to go out and drink too much with the rest of the city. Every hotel and bar worth it's lease is having a party this weekend.

I'm in Taipei - and there is a decent amount of Xmas decoration about the place, but it's almost completely done by companies. Shops and department stores put up their decorations, most companies will have something in their offices, and some communities will put up lights. It doesn't extend to a personal level: most homes won't have decorations/trees, there is no Christmas card giving, or presents and turkey on the day.

I agree with Karl that it's an excuse for a bit of fun and decoration - nothing more.

However, why are WTO attendees complaining about the homogenization of western tastes? That's supposed to be the province of the anti-WTO loons isn't it?

Christmas is popular in Europe, Canada and Australia for historical/cultural/family/giftgiving reasons (most people in these countries rarely or never attend church). The last two of these presumably apply in HK.

It's a major feast day. Who doesn't love feast days?

In Bombay its an excuse to drink. A lot.

Having lived in Tokyo for almost five years, I would agree with some of what's been posted above: tacky and materialism are relative and the popularity of Xmas (as well as Valentine's Day in Japan) are largely a product of commercial interests. I would add that, unless things have changed in the last 7 years, in Japan Xmas is--believe it or not--largely an occasion for young couples and newlyweds to go to French restaurants and then spend the night in a "Love Hotel". Talk about your jingle bells!

There is a memorable story (whether or not it is true, I cannot say) of a shopping mall in Japan during the 1980s in which the centerpiece of its Christmas decorations was a giant Santa Claus, nailed to a Cross. I remember it being cited as an example of cultural mashup inherent to the postmodern condition. Does anyone have a photo?

Two words Dan: British Empire. Oh, and the who doesn't love a party stuff--that's true too. What's fun is how weird a lot of familiar icons look refracted through non-western lenses. I have a great photo of me in our Calcutta apt., holding a large cardboard cutout of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) taken straight out of a medieval portrait, with "Merry Xmas" in glitter-writing across the bottom. Wish I still had it!

For Japan, since they were never actually colonized, I'd stake my historical "spidey-sense" on the post-war presence of thousands of US troops, combined with the manufacture there for decades of all the crap that's now made in China. As with the drug trade, I suspect the use (and abuse) of Christmas-related junk spreads all along the supply chain, and that this rather than western cultural imperialism explains the patterns you see across Asia today.

Attended Beijing University in 1991, the school is far away from the western business/expat community, yet Xmas stuff was all over stores on and off campus. Agree with Karl above, it was an excuse for retailers to do something different but, in talking to the students, one that tied in to the Chinese fascination with a broadly defined 'western chic' - just about anything linked to the west, such as nonsensical English phrasing on all types of goods (shirts with 'boys and balls' across the front were wildly popular at the time), was hip thus the interest in Xmas, Valentine's Day, etc.

I spent part of the holiday season in Kuala Lumpur years ago, and noticed the music soundtracks in the malls were full of seasonal music. Nothing religious, at least not overtly so, as you would expect in a mostly Muslim country. The weird thing in this tropical country was that non-religious Christmas music is mostly about snow and sleighrides and things of that nature. I think the malls' air conditioning was turned up even more than usual just to get people in the mood.

Japan has its own homegrown Christmas tradition, presumably created by commercial interests, of Christmas cake, incidentally. (A different type from those one might see in Britain.)

One might as well ask why most Japanese couples get Christian weddings, despite not being Christian. They like the pagentry and style of those weddings.

The story about the Japanese shopping mall with the crucified Santa probably never happened: http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/cross.asp

What's wrong with Christmas? It's a great tradition of gift-giving and holiday fun, and is easily adopted without the Christian aspects. If Christmas were a Chinese tradition being imported to America these same complainents would be cooing over its rich history and vibrant spectacle, etc.

Christmas was once a typical holiday: the commemoration of a great historical event. Under Anglo-U.S. tutelage, with some help from the Germans and the Scandinavians, it has morphed into a celebration of family and personal goodness. In increasingly atomized and anonymous societies it offers a rare chance to publicly celebrate human decency, love and family bonds. It indeed would be a interesting sociological study to see whether or not a correlation exists between the intensity of Christmas celebrations and the degree of alienation of everyday life.

My girlfriend (born and raised in Hong Kong) and I were having this discussion just the other night, when I asked her why - as a Buddhist - she was so happy to celebrate Christmas.

She echoes a lot of the posters here - first, British rule over the island imported the holiday's trappings, and their spread in a predominantly non-Christian region decontextualized the holiday's symbols from their original religious basis. Once there were no real religious ties left to the holiday, it was a simple matter to expand on the purely secular aspects of Christmas (namely, the commercial gift-giving and general goodwill message) and, in true Hong Kong style, make a spectacle out of it.

As anyone who follows popular fashion in Hong Kong knows, the bigger the better, and it needn't necessarily make too much "sense" - note the trend from a few years ago when garbage bag chic was all the rage with young girls.