A Very Wuhan Christmas

It feels like Wuhan has been getting ready for Christmas since I got to China, and in a way, it has. The musical street cleaners have been blasting Jingle Bells constantly and every time my washing machine finishes a load I am treated to a rendition of the same mechanical musical tune. Wuhans Christmas spirit is year long, but it's fixated on the trappings of Christmas, the tinsel and the glitter. China loves to shop and as Christmas in China is the shopping day of the year, China loves Christmas. On Christmas day at midnight, I’m told that the streets will be filled by the consumer conscious masses barging forward to get the newly discounted Christmas merchandise. At which point I imagine that the carefully painted snowflakes in the windows of the stores and the illuminated Christmas trees will be pretty unimportant next to getting discounted handbags and electricals.

While the Wuhan-ese have adopted this glitz and trappings of the holiday I’m still feeling homesick. Although jingle bells is pounding and my ears, all the shop windows are bedecked with tinsel and fake snow,the hotel next to my school has a gingerbread house which is essentially a shed covered in cake, I am still missing home. The little things that make a British Christmas; Baileys with my housemates, warm mince pies with cream and the smell when you just took the lid off of a box of Quality Street. I want next-day turkey sandwiches, Christmas crackers, cheesy jokes, paper hats and my family quarreling merrily, a little drunk all around me.

I’ve decorated my little room, and tried to make it as festive as possible, my little Christmas tree, while tacky and minute, cheered me up significantly.

And I was so happy to receive, in time for Christmas, a parcel from home. This is why Mums are the best, my little box of Christmas made me ecstatic and sparked my Christmas spirit. I don’t think I could of ever imagined how excited I could be by Heinz tomato soup.


Whatever I say about my students, they can be loud and obnoxious and there are days that I would gladly never ever see them again but then there are days, like today, when I actually love the little beasts. My naughtiest class, who never stop talking and can drive me crazy, today presented me with a beautiful Christmas cake. They sang Jingle Bells and danced to Gangnam style for me. It renewed my faith a little bit, my students are good, sweet kids. They were quiet all lesson as well, I didn't even have to shout, my own little Christmas miracle.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to celebrate Christmas day in Hong Kong. Where I’ll have myself a very Hong Kong Christmas. You'll hear all about it asap.

Until I get a chance to write again, have a brilliant Christmas.