As a boy living in Beijing for five years, I notice that Christmas arouses increasing attention year by year. If you are in Beijing, you will be surprised to see so many malls and shops are full of Christmas carols and music several weeks before Christmas day. Christmas trees are in front of all major hotels, malls, office buildings, and commercial cross roads. You can see many people take photos before Christmas trees in great form. Windows along the streets are covered with flying Santa Claus and his flying deer. All shops, restaurants, bars, clubs put out big signs like "Christmas Specials" to attract the clients.

A lot of programs on TV and radio about Christmas are reminding you that the day is coming. The advertisements about Christmas on media give the audience an overwhelming atmosphere of festival. People, especially the youngster, wait eagerly for the coming of Christmas. For example, many of my classmates have planned how to spend this day with their best friends or lover for a long time. People use cell phone to greet each other by saying "Merry Christmas" at first. They also send Christmas cards to the friends far away to express their friendship and love. In that day, People hold Christmas parties and exchange Christmas gifts, with the Christmas atmosphere all over the places.

Compared to this situation is that the Spring Festival is less appealing to youngsters in China nowadays. Some people are afraid that Christmas may replace the Spring Festival gradually. Lately, as news reported, some students, from such elite institutions as Tsinghua, Peking and Renmin universities, wrote a weighty-sounding open letter complaining that Christmas is a Christian holiday imported from the West and suggesting that Chinese should stick to the traditions and festivals observed in our own culture.

Why are the Chinese people so crazy for celebrating the Christmas day? Is it possible that the Christmas will replace the tradition Spring festival in future? These questions are interesting and remarkable. I want to give my own analyze and explanation.

First of all, as we enter the new millennium we are living through rapid and drastic changes in the global society. Innovations in information and communications technologies, in conjunction with the liberalization of trade and capital flows, are leading to ever intensifying globalization.  Globalization is now an unstoppable trend. The world is smaller and smaller, just like a “global village”. Along with globalization, the affiliation and impact between countries are more intense day after day.

Since China’s opening-up in the late 1970s, the influence of western economy, politics and culture, has been more and more obvious in the Chinese society. In particular, the western customs, like the celebration of Christmas and Valentine's Day, were known and accepted by Chinese people. It's just a phenomenon brought by the Globalization course. From my perspective, it might not be a bad thing for traditional Chinese culture to make some changes under influence of Western culture. The competition and syncretism among different cultures would make them more dynamic and advancing with the times. As a matter of fact, Chinese culture has developed a lot while embracing other cultures. It’s also impacting other countries in the world. For instance, there has been founded 123 Confucius Institutes in 51 countries and regions so far. The Confucius Institute is a non-profit school specializing in Chinese language education and cultural communication which represent the Chinese culture force in the world.

Secondly, I think it’s not necessary to boycott Christmas as the open letter said. There is no feasibility for the Christmas to replace the tradition Spring Festival in future. As we know, Christmas is originally a religious festival in order to commemorate the advent of Jesus Christ in Christendom. But for most of Chinese people, it does not make religion sense. The Christmas is just another excuse to go out to eat, to go shopping, and to find some fun. Well, in China, Christmas, just like Valentine's Day, Singles’ Day etc, is all but a big commercial holiday for shopping and eating.

Frankly speaking, the popularity of Christmas in China is mostly due to commercialization. On one hand, as the biggest country of production for Christmas gifts in the world, China has many producers who are thirst for exploiting the domestic market. So they spare no effort to advocate the Christmas as a significant festival through advertising or the other activities. On the other hand, merchants also regard this festival as a good opportunity to promote sales in the end of a year. So they hold many special promotions and feedback activities during Christmas season. In these days, every Shopping mall is crowded with people buying all kinds of stuffs. Inside the mall, the air is so ripe that you just couldn't take it any more.

When people are in such an atmosphere, they find it hard to refrain from devoting not only emotions but also their actions to this festival. So they use this opportunity that the businessmen provide to spend generously on goods at low prices. As the more people buy during Christmas season, the larger motivation the businessman would have. In this way, it forms a virtuous circle. On one hand, it’s beneficial to the producers and merchants to make money; on the other hand, it’s helpful for the spread of Christmas tradition from western countries.

From the analysis above, we can see that the globalization and the development of the economy are the root causes. As China is developing into the first economic power in the world and the globalization process becomes more and more quickly, there will be more and more people celebrating Christmas in future. Not just in the big cities, but also in the little towns. (962 words)