Merry Christmas, 聖誕快樂

Merry Christmas from Taiwan. 聖誕快樂 – Shengdan Kuaile! May Santa bring you the presents that you always wished for. Personally, all I want is world peace and for my daughters to stop fighting with each other. The outlook for world peace is more promising.

Actually we thought we could get away with not having Christmas this year. Only some 1 percent of Taiwanese are Christians and our kids don’t even have the 25th off from school. My university courses grind on through the holiday just as before. Nothing much changes until the Chinese New Year in mid-February.

But as it turns out Christmas is heavily celebrated in shopping-malls. There are Christmas trees everywhere and endless encouragements to consume. Ever eager to follow local customs we bought a new car! (The first car I’ve owned in 16 years — in London we always relied on Ken Livingstone to take us places). And yesterday we celebrated by going to IKEA. They have pepparkaksgubbar there — gingerbread men — and Christmas candles.

Today we will mainly be assembling furniture and watching the YouTube Christmas specials. No, Santa’s workshop is not in the North Pole, it’s in Taiwan (although much of the actual work is subcontracted to elfs in the Chinese mainland).