I’m not much for celebrating holidays.
I spent last New Year’s Eve watching an old episode of “MacGyver” with my dad. My birthday party consisted of editing stories at The Daily. And for Thanksgiving, that celebration of family togetherness, I sat in my apartment and watched my roommate devour most of a 14-pound turkey in one sitting.
But for some reason Christmas is different. It’s more than just a holiday — it’s a month in which people take a break from their usual winter behavior of burying their heads in their scarves to look up and smile at strangers on the street.
That’s true whether you’re walking in front of Marshall Fields on Michigan Avenue or in the middle of a crowded marketplace in Shanghai, China, where I lived for four years before coming to Northwestern.
Shanghai is a city of extremes, with rich businessmen living in walled-off compounds surrounded by families living in tiny one-room shacks. You can buy a salad at a fancy foreign restaurant for about $10 or walk a block away and, for the same price, buy dinner for four people. Seedy bars with cheap beer are a short walk away from glamorous discotheques with hefty cover charges and European DJs — and thanks to a lack of a legal drinking age, I was able to partake of both during high school.
The city’s reputation for debauchery, however, takes a backseat during the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Store owners spray fake snow on their windows, put up large pictures of Santa and write out his famous laugh — although I’ve seen it spelled “ha-ha-ha” more than once. Some of the larger shops, such as the Shanghai No. 1 Department Store, hang tinsel, wreaths and ornaments around the store — and if it weren’t for the signs reading “Happy Crismis,” you’d think you were in the States.
But the best part of being in China for Christmas is shopping in the street markets, and in Shanghai that means strolling down Huating Road.
Huating is a narrow street lined with small booths selling everything from puppy dogs to designer clothes — all at less than one-tenth of market price. Last Christmas I spent $19 on a North Face jacket that would have cost $400 here.
To get into any of the booths at Huating you have to elbow a few people out of your way. The shop owners will haggle over prices, and with my limited knowledge of the Chinese language this usually meant I would yell “Duo shao tien” (how much) and “Tai gui le” (too expensive) until I got the price I wanted.
This sometimes made for a less than pleasant atmosphere to shop in, and my friends and I would need a few minutes to let the adrenaline leave our systems after we finished shopping.
But during the weeks leading up to Christmas, the market changed. People were nicer and a little less willing to elbow you out of their way.
The sketchy guys who sold black-market CDs would make sure they included a few holiday albums — Mariah Carey’s Christmas record was always a favorite — when they brought me down a dark alley so I could leaf through music without any cops watching us.
My favorite memory of Huating at Christmas was when I was helping my little sister buy presents for my mom and dad. We had finished and were just on our way out when an old, toothless woman stopped us and gave a rose to my sister.
“Duo shao tien?” I asked, but the woman just smiled, reached up to pat my red hair and continued on her way.
