Sunday 19 December 2010

Frohliche Weinachten



We went to our local Christmas market and realised this was pretty different to our last four Christmases. Each time we went tropical with Yuletide it felt strange as though something was missing, as though something had been added. Heat, palm trees, alien counter culture, you name it. Of course there was the novelty of being sun drenched instead of snow stormed; the quirk of seeing sweating Santas on mopeds in 35 degree heat peddling crap made in China or the nascent acceptance of the commercial cachet of Christmas; trophied wives of fat Farang blinged with jewels that sparkled like the plastic ice on the wall of a Bangkok mall. The SE Asian take on Christmas follows familiar commercial lines; the Vietnamese version was more basic and like so many things in that environment, the rush to embrace the best of the West was diminishing the wonder, blurring the reason, of the original Christmas season. Fat cat leaders announced, dear workers, this must be celebrated. It is allowed, it is permitted. You may dress your children cutely as Santa but you must still work for a dollar while we lick our own cream. Like the Catholics in Hanoi who found their sacred ground forbidden to them; like Thich Nhat Hanh's followers who have been barred from their temple since Vietnam ascended like a Phoenix from Napalm fire to the WTO. Ho Chi Minh's Neo-Congs have dulled his legacy by lighting up their faithless Christmas lights while puffing on air choking cigars

This has been a world away. A Christmas market in Freiburg was thick with people, a throng of locals and tourists alike getting
spirited by seasonal Gluhwein, a mulled concoction that involved cries of Prost! and a zig zag approach to walking through the stalls. Here the chintz was local with hardly a made in China sticker in sight but I liked our local Christmas market more, felt at home on the banks of the close to frozen Birs ( see the photo below and the geezer above). I guess
I liked it too because I recognised some locals, a few characters who must be our neighbours. We had pumpkin soup and I bought a star chopped rough from local wood. A group of nervous children were singing off key to Silent Night while, knitted and mueslied, a woman urged them to seasonal resonance. In the corner a man began to play with his organ. This seems about right. Frohliche Weinachten !


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