Chinese Christmas Songs
With the development of Internet and the globalization, more and
more Chinese become Christian. On the other hand, the shopping
centers in China treat Christmas as a great commercial
revenue-generating opportunity. Generally speaking, varieties of
reasons cause the popularization of Christmas in China.
During the Christmas season, the Christmas songs are played
everywhere, high level office buildings in the major cities such as
Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are covered by holiday decorations.
When going along the Chang An Avenue where is in the center of
Beijing on December, you can find huge Christmas trees almost every
50 meters; Santa, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf, are ubiquitous in
every shopping mall, of course, along with the Christmas sales.
Christmas songs as one important component of Christmas are also
widespread in China. There are mainly two kinds of Christmas songs
have been spread out in China. The first kind is the traditional
Christmas song, most of them are translated from the English
version; another kind are the songs related with Christmas and
written in a relatively recent time period, they are usually pop
songs sung by pop singers.
During the first categories, "Jingle Bells", "we wish you a
merry Christmas" and "silent Night" are the most popular songs in
China, basically, all the shopping mall will play those songs all
day long around Christmas. First, the tones of those songs are very
easy to remember and highly repeatable; second, the bouncy tones
are suitable for the holiday mood. Those kinds of Christmas songs
are very popular around the holiday season, basically, majority of
the people in China could sing those songs or at least familiar
with the tones.
For the second type, most of those songs are just popular during
the youth. Those songs are usually successful pop songs which are
related with Christmas, such as "last Christmas" and "white
Christmas". However, there are very few songs sung by Chinese
singers are related with Christmas.
Just like Japan, Christmas in China is less a family religious
festival and more a commercial and couple-centric holiday, young
couples buy gifts for each other to express their affection.
Another reason for this phenomenon is Chinese do not used to sing
holiday songs during holiday. Chinese do have songs about some
holidays, but majority Chinese just listen to them and do not sing
by themselves. Christmas is around New Year, most of Chinese treat
New Year more serious. The Christmas, is a little unimportant
celebration in China. Just like Chinese New Year in America, most
of Chinese know the existing of Christmas; however, they usually do
not celebrate it formally.
The third reason is most of Chinese do not have religion
background, even for the Chinese Christian; they just consider
Jesus as an alternative for China's Buddha. The majority of Chinese
do not have any religion, they do not believe in Buddha, let alone
the Jesus; by the way, most Chinese do not know the difference
between Jews and Christians, they think there is one major religion
in Western world, and the god of that religion is God, that's all.
Christmas just mean "fashion" and "international" to lots of the
Chinese, so the Christmas tunes just like pop songs to them.
In conclusion, most of Christmas songs spread in china are just
like pop songs, and the unoriginal of Christmas carols and tunes is
doomed in a country like China.
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