Xmas Twilight Zone

Back in Xian, we get into a somewhat regular routine. Nasty instant coffee & pastry early in the morning before vocal class at 9am to noon. Lunch at our favorite dumpling house. Errands, rest or practices for William till 3pm & we’re back for movement workshop. It’s usually dark by the time we get out & we stroll back leisurely to our hotel along the busy night market. We stumbled upon a really great foot massage place where you get an hour treatment for the price of a Latte at the airport. Since we couldn't find any decent Latte in Xian, that became our favorite pastime for most evenings. It was'nt a bad trade off.

We were strolling along the busy night market after class 1 night. The night being Silent Night…well hardly. It was Christmas Eve & giddiish girls wearing cheesy tiaras with blinking LEDs mob the streets. I had already anticipated that spending Christmas in Xian or China would be very different or even strange. Normally, back in Toronto, the streets are empty & silent (thus Silent Night) as everyone huddles at home to be with family. But here, it felt more like a cross between New Years Eve & Mardi-Gras with everyone out wearing festive costumes, many in bright red Santa Claus toots.

This shouldn’t come as a shock to me as shops have been piped with bad Christmas caroling & displaying banners advertising deals ever since we got here. But I do find Christmas strangely way more a commercialize frenzy here in this supposedly Communist State than I care for compare to the Capitalist West as I gazed at the twenty-some feet high plastic Christmas tree in aw.

Finally, we found every restaurant fully booked & dinner started to look grim as we got turned away by every Santa Maitre D’ in this Christmas Twilight Zone. In the absence of turkey dinner, we found our way back to our regular evening hangout & celebrated Christmas with our favorite foot masseuses #51 & #56. Well I have to admit; it was the most unlikely place I’d ever imagined ending up on Silent Night. But I’m sure Santa Claus wouldn’t have complained.