Season’s greetings: Love Asia

Christianity may not be Asia’s forte, but Christmas cheer has the region wrapped

BANGKOK: The decorations are up, the carols are playing and Santa has been seen scuba diving in Japan, delivering presents on a motorbike in Seoul and being thrown out of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The shop tills are ringing in Buddhist Bangkok and Muslim Kuala Lumpur, where stores are festooned with tinsel and fairy lights.

United Arab Emirates

Emirates Palace, a hotel in Abu Dhabi, decorated a Christmas tree with $11 million worth of jewellery. The hotel was said to be trying for a world record for most-expensively dressed tree and decorators used diamond sets, pearls and precious gems to decorate the artificial tree but on Sunday a statement carried by the government agency in Abu Dhabi suggested that the hotel had decided it had acted in bad taste.

Japan

Santa has made a splash in Tokyo aquariums, feeding marine life and performing with dolphins. At one, an electric eel is generating power for the Christmas lights and visitors can help by stomping a floor panel, which generates additional electricity to power a blue light on the Christmas tree, as a robotic Santa looks on, singing Christmas songs and wriggling his hips.

South Korea

50 post office delivery men wearing Santa Claus outfits are delivering presents by motorbike to poor children in Seoul, where even the 22-metre-tall “Hammering Man” sculpture is wearing a red hat.

South Korea will also display Christmas lights near its tense border with North Korea for the first time since 2004, following the regime’s deadly artillery attack last month, said military officials.

India

While Christians make up a mere two percent of India’s billion plus population, Christmas has become a popular festival there and shops are cashing in by selling gifts such as Santa Claus masks.

China

Malls, office buildings and restaurants in major cities are decking their halls with bright lights, Christmas trees and robotic Santas as retailers latch on to the holiday’s sales potential. The season is a vital time of year for the country’s myriad toy-makers and other manufacturers and exporters who for years have served at Santa’s workshop.

Malaysia

The festive mood is evident in Kuala Lumpur with huge Christmas trees decorated with bright coloured bulbs in major shopping malls.

Christmas cuisine such as roast turkey and lamb is popular with food-loving Malaysians and supermarkets and restaurants are doing brisk business. “I am catering for a big party consisting mainly of non-Christians. Last year I had roast turkey orders from Muslims,” said Ivy Arigesamy, a restaurant owner in the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Taiwan

Restaurants in Taiwan are also enjoying some Christmas cheer. “Nearly 90 per cent of the seats at our seven restaurants have already been booked for Christmas Eve,” said Cindy Lo, a spokeswoman for the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei, a leading hotel in the island’s capital city.

Vietnam

Christmas displays are going up, with snowmen more than two metres (seven feet) tall outside one bar in Ho Chi Minh City. In the city centre, streetlights are decorated with large snowflakes, and children wait to have their picture taken with Santa outside the Saigon Centre shopping mall.

Cambodia

In the country’s north-western tourist hub of Siem Reap, a hotel has unveiled a giant Christmas tree made up entirely of local fishing materials such as bamboo rods and hand-woven nets and carols ware being sung in English while Khmer marks the hotel’s tree lighting ceremony. The lyrics were modified to give a local flavour, with Santa Claus arriving by tuk-tuk instead of a sleigh.

With additional information from the Wall Street Journal.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2010.