There's no Christmas in Taiwan, or at least no Christmas in the same way you think of it here. Only five per cent of the population is Christian; the rest are Buddhist or atheist, so there's no national recognition and no big celebrations. It's not a national holiday (although a party holiday happens to coincide with it) and celebrations are modest even among Christian communities.
I grew up in Tai-nan, a city in southwestern Taiwan. It's where Presbyterian missionaries first entered the country and established theological schools. As a result it's part of the “Presbyterian South,” so called because Presbyterianism is more pervasive there than in the rest of the country.
Presbyterians celebrated Christmas on the fourth Sunday of Advent. We didn't mark the first three Sundays in any particular way. There was no special food. And we didn't get together with our extended family. Christmas was an exclusively church holiday and we spent it with our church family.
On the fourth Sunday of Advent, there would be a service including a Christmas pageant presented by the Sunday school. Afterwards, Santa Claus may show up and give a present to each child. We had a Santa Claus myth, but it was very commercial and not all Presbyterians liked it.
There wasn't really a gift exchange. Santa would give his presents to the children, and sometimes they would get a present from their parents. My parents usually gave me only one gift, and it was only during years that they remembered. Some years they remembered, and some years they didn't. Christmas wasn't a big holiday for us. I think Chinese New Year was the closest thing we had to the huge celebrations that accompany Christmas in Canada and Denmark.
I remember one year that my husband, who is Danish, and I spent Christmas in Taiwan. He was astounded at how little we did to celebrate it. My grandfather has a tradition of gathering everyone together each night and reading a few passages from the Bible. On Christmas Eve, my husband asked him to read the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. Until he made that request, my grandfather had completely forgotten that it was Christmas Eve!
Canadian Christmas was a bit of a culture shock, but my biggest shock was spending Christmas in Denmark. Every day there's something happening! Now that I have a family in Canada, we keep Danish traditions at home, although I'm still active with my Taiwanese church. – as told to Connie Purvis
