Christmas Banned in a Chinese Town

The grinch has arrived in Langfang, Hebei province in northern China

The local government in Langfang, a Chinese town in Hebei province, is the Christmas grinch this year.

Officials have ordered the removal of all festive decorations and banned shops from holding sales to "maintain stability".

The statement from the city management office of Langfang also appealed to the public to report anyone "spreading religion" in parks and squares, though it didn't specify which religion.

All Christmas decorations are banned from the city

Christmas isn't a recognized holiday in China, though for many particularly young people it's an excuse to hang out with friends at restaurants and bars, or buying gifts.

Langfang isn't the first place to ban Christmas -- in December last year, members of the Communist Party's Youth League at the University of South China in Hunan province were asked to sign a code of conduct that they would not participate in Christmas-related celebrations.

In the case of Langfang, local officials said anyone caught selling Christmas trees, wreaths, stockings or Santa Claus figurines in the city would be published, while shops are prohibited from holding Christmas performances or promotional sales.

This ban comes after the government has been cracking down on people practicing Christianity. On Saturday morning, more than 60 police officers and officials stormed a children's Bible class in Guangzhou.

Langfang may be trying to please Beijing through the ban

The authorities also shut down the 1,500-member Zion Church in Beijing in September, and Chengdu's 500-member Early Rain Covenant Church last week. In the latter case, about 100 worshippers were snatched from their homes or from the streets in coordinated raids.

Amnesty International China researcher Patrick Poon the recent raids on churches reflected the government's attitude towards Christianity, and the move by Langfang officials in Hebei may have been intended to impress Beijing.

"The authorities in Langfang might want to show how much they are ready to please the central government by banning Christmas decorations and sales.

"However, it also shows their ignorance about what Christmas really means for Christians, which is not about shopping or party celebrations, but it's the time to manifest their faith."

It's also interesting to keep in mind China manufactured and exported 60 percent of the world's artificial Christmas trees in 2017, according to Xinhua.

Why isn't that banned?

Making a Snow Globe

My snow globe complete with Santa and panda!

Periodically my company arranges social activities to do after work or on the weekends, and earlier this week there was a snow globe-making class that cost HK$130 per person for materials.

The last time I participated was when we made a leather card holder that ironically wasn't big enough to hold our name cards, but I still use it as a case for my Octopus card...

This day though was probably not as challenging in the needle department, but still demanded flexing those creativity muscles.

Some examples of design combinations by the instructors

In the boardroom was a plastic sheet covering the large table and there were flat plastic boxes filled with small items in it.

The instructors invited us to first choose the "stage" with a rubber bottom that would fit the snow globe on top. Some had a bouquet of stars, another with hearts, or baubles.

And then we were told to pick items we wanted to include in the snow globe. This was the hardest part because there were so many things to choose from! In hindsight I probably should have chosen a more timeless design, but seeing as it was December and getting close to Christmas, most of us were inspired to do a snow globe with a wintery festive scene.

It took a while to decide what to include, but then I managed to gather a number of things and then the instructors told us to arrange these small things and use blue sticky tack to temporarily stick them together.

These are only a few of the small items we could choose from!

We were given tips to put things on top of each other -- so I put my small Santa on top of a present to give him a bit of height, and same with my small Christmas tree. An instructor suggested I cover up small empty spaces by adding flowers or small hearts on the "stage".

Once this was sorted, we were given glue to stick everything together. For my Santa standing on a present, these two had to be glued together first before being glued on the stand, which required a bit more waiting time.

This was the meticulous part of the exercise, and at times I had to use tweezers to place tiny items on carefully.

Finally once these were all dried, the instructor got a glass globe, filled it with water and we were invited to choose the sprinkles that would be floating inside. She quickly took small scoops of each and swirled them in the globe. What fun!

Then my "stage" with the items glued on were inserted into the water-filled globe and secured, with more water added in through a squeeze bottle. He shook the globe vigorously several times to make sure it wasn't leaking and then it was glued onto a stand that  I had chosen earlier.

Couldn't fit the penguin (left) or the star (right) or mushrooms!

Again I waited several more minutes for the glue to set before I was done! The whole thing would be completely dried after two hours.

It's fun to shake, though I noticed that some areas where I had mistakenly left some glue exposed, the tiny snow flakes and sparkles I put in the globe have stuck on to these parts! I thought the glue had dried before it went into the globe, but perhaps not entirely.

No matter -- it was fun anyway to be able to have a creative outlet for about two hours.