Chengdu’s Odd Christmas Tradition
I was at dinner last night when one of my friends told me about a strange Christmas Eve tradition in her hometown of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. “Every year, people go to the main pedestrian street and start hitting each other with inflatable toys,” she explained.
I was perplexed, though far from surprised. Christmas is an increasingly popular holiday in China, mostly because it offers a fun excuse to shop and socialize. Since China has no homegrown Christmas traditions of its own, though, many Chinese are inventing new ones. I asked my friend to send me some more information when she got the chance. So late last night, after she returned home from dinner, she emailed me a link to this Chinese discussion board post, which described the event and provided a lot of nice photos.
Imagine a flash mob, like one of those public pillow fights, that involves not just a few dozen people but tens of thousands of them. Armed with inflatable bats (many inexplicably decorated with the stars and stripes), they descend on Chendu’s main shopping district and start whacking each other over the head. There are families with young children, groups of teenagers, young couples and middle-aged people; all of them seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.
A bit of research revealed a blog entry that describes last year’s Christmas Eve festivities:
The gathering place for Christmas eve festivities is a street named Chunxilu. It’s the main shopping centers in Chengdu, much like Westlake in downtown Seattle. My friends had told me of this tradition, and then in all ernestness warned me not to go. How could I not, when they had just filled me in on all the details? The bat bashing in Chunxilu has become so violent and out of control the past couple of years, that rumour was the police were going to try and put a stop to it.
We arrived Chunxilu just in time to see the police forming lines and pushing people out of the shopping area. This left only one place for them to go: the streets. Instead of one mega-crowd engaged in bat bashing, this left gangs of roaming teenage boys ready to take out their energy on passing foreigners. For the most part, people without bats were left out of the brawls, but when one of my classmates bought one, it was all we could do to walk a block without getting attacked. Eventually the police caught on to what was happening, and began confiscating or popping bats. On each corner sat a pile of deflated Christmas cheer.
Sure enough, Chengdu’s authorities prevented the Christmas Eve bash from taking place again this year. It’s a shame, really.
Montreal Apartments
Cedric says:
I love it how one of the inflatable weapons of choice is a baseball bat with the colours of the United States of America!
December 26th, 2007 at 12:11 pm