Christmas commercialism explodes in atheist China

[rug]

This picture, taken on December 18, 2014, shows a man dressed up as Santa Claus bungee-jumping at a theme park in Changsha, central China's Hunan province. The park organised a series of Santa Claus-themed events ahead of Christmas. AFP Photo

December 21, 2014
Updated: December 22, 2014 12:23 AM

BEIJING // Christmas was once banned in China. But in recent years this Christian festival has exploded in the aethist nation, with retailers using everything from saxophones and Smurfs to steam trains and carousels to encourage shoppers to open their wallets.

Anyone walking into a shopping mall is bombarded with festive sights and sounds: shop windows are bedecked with plastic Christmas trees, garlands and baubles, while the strains of Jingle Bells fill the air.

On the streets, banners reading “Happy Christmas” hang from schools and hotels, while festive messages are splashed across adverts and the media. In many restaurants, staff wear Santa Claus hats topped with felt reindeer antlers.

Christmas is celebrated widely across Asia, particularly in commercial centres like Japan and Hong Kong, where it has become a major shopping holiday devoid of most religious trappings.

http://www.thenational.ae/world/east-asia/20141221/christmas-commercialism-explodes-in-atheist-china

[subterranean]

1. In other words, it's become pretty much like Christmas in the U.S.

"A major shopping holiday devoid of most religious trappings."

[rug]

2. Capitalism poisons evertything.

[cbayer]

3. Together we can find a cure.

[Fumesucker]

4. Fundamentalism ruins everything

And the Chinese 1% are nothing if not fundamentalist capitalists.

[rug]

6. Capitalism is the most liquid and most opportunistic of human inventions.

It will abandon anything and accommodate everything in its flow toward private profit.

It respects nothing and stands for nothing but the acquisition of private capital.

It has no principles and it has no spine.

I don't think fundamentalism is an apt description.

[Fumesucker]

10. When one overriding principle drives out all others, that's fundamentalism

Capitalism taken to an extreme hits all of the seven deadly sins in at least a glancing manner and a plurality if not an outright majority of them dead on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride

Mammonhu akbar (pbuh)

Profit be upon him

[unrepentant progress]

5. Shanhai poster, 1940s

[rug]

7. Is that an advertisement?

The mother and children look like they're from Peoria.

[unrepentant progress]

8. I don't know

I know very little about it, although I love the art. It's from the Republican era, so probably. In those days you had both Russian and, of course, British influence in Shanghai.

[rug]

9. Definitely a lot of Wsetern influence there.

Thanks for posting it. A different era.

[okasha]

11. Very Nprman Rockwell.

If you look really closely, the mother's face reflects the classic ideal of Chinese feminine beauty-- but you do have to look very closely.

The kids, though, are purely Western.