Mixed feelings about Christmas in Thailand
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Christmas brings mixed feelings to me every year in Thailand. Despite all the artificial trees and jingle bells in the shopping malls, the right atmosphere just won't come. We don't have to count on a snow-white Christmas here, but Silent Night, Holy Night at thirty degrees is also too much of a good thing. However you look at it, you will carry the memory of celebrations in the Netherlands with you throughout your life.
Doubts also struck at the end of each year in the Netherlands. Being forced to be with people of good will didn't really appeal to me. Dark days in December invariably made me grumpy, followed by too much and too expensive food at Christmas. Cold, wet and inclement weather; dark when I drove to work and dark again when I came home. I celebrated Christmas for the children and to keep the peace. Visiting family wasn't my thing, but during those days I suppressed my cynicism. Why only do nice things at the end of the year, only to throw it away again at the beginning of January?
In Thailand for the past 12 years I have not been able to get used to the way the solstice is celebrated here. I have an artificial tree with countless lights, but that's just to please daughter Lizzy, who is seven. Go to any shopping mall and it will go to great lengths to rival its competitors with the widest variety of decorations. Accompanied by English children's choirs belting out Christmas carols. Which I can't get out of my head. It is precisely at those moments that I miss family and friends in the Netherlands.
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In super-capitalist Thailand, the middle class has to do it alone to sell more, because the average Thai has no idea about Christmas, other than it sometimes gives a day off, especially for employees of banks, teachers and civil servants. Then go shopping again. Every excuse to celebrate a party is seized with both hands. Of course in combination with the necessary alcohol, which in turn results in a peak in the number of road deaths.
Last week daughter Lizzy asked me in the car if I knew the story of Jesus? I asked her how she got to this question. Lizzy replied, "Not everyone liked him, did they." She was referring to the testamentary ending of the Bible story. She had picked that up on Youtube, the modern missionary. I told her that many people believe this, but many do not and that the story is not for me. In my view that all beliefs are superstitions, she has to wait a few more years. If you still believe in Sinterklaas, the world is still perfect and it can stay that way for a while. The belief in Santa Claus has now been added to the realm of fables.
Christmas in Thailand also has good sides, although these have nothing to do with the holiday. It's always here for shorts (though not for the last few days). I can go on my bike and in the swimming pool every day, something I could forget in December in the Netherlands. And you can wish everyone a prosperous 2018.
Dear readers (gender neutral) I will do that with this one. I wish you many enemas and a happy new mia (female)….
About this blogger
- Almost 20 years ago, journalist Hans Bos moved to Bangkok. Almost from the beginning, he was involved in the birth of Thailandblog. As a journalist, he worked for Limburg newspapers and for the travel trade journals of what was once called Elsevier. Hans (76) has lived in Hua Hin for 14 years, with his wife Raysiya and daughter Lizzy. He was secretary and vice-chairman of the Dutch association in Hua Hin and Cha Am for about nine years.
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The Christmas party is in fact the Christianized version of the Joel festival, say the Germanic Midwinter festival.
Although that was also largely based on (super) belief, it is easier to understand in its original form and also appeals to me more than the Jesus version.
Let the Thai be ignorant about this, otherwise I fear they will be very happy to copy that, if only because it took twelve days…
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https://goo.gl/ivHTDp
Your last sentence isn't serious, of course, but let me respond to it seriously:
When I speak to a Thai who says they don't celebrate Christmas because he or she is not a Christian or thinks Christmas is sanoek even though he or she is not a Christian, I tell them that Christmas is not purely for Christians at all. I tell them that the Christmas tree has 0,0 to do with Jesus. That Christmas is a mishmash of old beliefs and customs: the solstice, the Germans, Bacchus, etc., I add. And I also add that Thailand just as well has a mishmash of customs that are not all Buddhist, but also animistic or other old customs. In short, it is very normal worldwide to mix and match various customs and elements, if only to get a new belief or custom accepted more easily. But that the most important thing is just to have fun (together). Do what makes you feel good.
Nice to tell them all that. If I'm cursing God for anything, it's that little bitch in Babylon that makes it so hard for us to understand each other these days.
Never mind I'm grumpy all year just not when I'm in Thailand. It's the festival of lights the solstice ages old.
Hey Hans, I've only known you recently but want you and Lizzy
Wishing the very best for 2018.
And now you think, where do I know Trees from !!!!
In Thailand, where both the connection with the Christian Christmas and the underlying solstice celebration are virtually zero, with only the commercial hope of generating turnover, you should not expect to be able to experience the same experience as in the cold NL. / Western Europe.
But never release yourself from the obligation to pass on the knowledge, feeling and background associated with it to the younger generation.
Another nice fact is that in some places, especially in restaurants, the Christmas tree stays up all year round and Christmas music can still be heard at Easter!
My Thai wife brought that custom to the Netherlands.
With an artificial Christmas tree of course.
We use it as a table lamp.
With us, the Christmas tree appears in October and disappears back to the cellar in March.
A clear story Hans such as the mandatory gathering at Christmas in the Netherlands.
How everyone experienced their Christmas there will become clear in Thailand whether or not you miss it.
In Thailand, Christmas is not celebrated except in the churches!
In super-capitalist Thailand! (You will hardly find greater poverty elsewhere) Decorations are hung up for commercial reasons and advertisements are scattered: Internationales Buffet im …..Weihnachten in ….Weihnachtsmenü in …Heiligabend im…. From 1200 Baht you are covered and the party can begin!
Perhaps a few crumbs will be left behind the hotels for the actual minimums!
Merry Christmas
Sometimes I also find it strange to see decorations of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs or of Cinderella at Christmas in Thailand. But we must not forget that Thailand is a Buddhist country and I think they do their best to create a little Christmas atmosphere.
Well Hans, that was another nice story, not really a Christmas story, but still.
In any case, I wish you and yours the same.
Somewhere I've had the same feeling here since the last week of November. Then they started at the tesco
with the application of the Christmas decoration. For the first time after more than 15 years, a feeling of homesickness has overtaken me, I miss the Christmas atmosphere in Flanders and everything that goes with it. Here one only hears jingle bells and I wish you; Once back at my apartment, I went to look up our good Christmas songs on you tube, especially the “Susa Nina” sung by Loui Neefs, which is the most beautiful Christmas song for me. The result is that I am now busy in my head all days and even nights am playing the whole movie of my life.
I hope it will stop after Christmas but then New Year will come but that was less important in my family.
To Thai I explain by saying that their era starts with Buddha and our era starts with the birth of CHRIST mas and they know what it is.
Merry Christmas to All and a Happy New Year for the following week.
Daniel
For me it's simple: I think the Christmas period is one of the nicest times of the year and that includes freezing temperatures and preferably also snow.
That is why countries such as Thailand and Australia, where tourists dive into the sea with a Christmas hat, are completely unsuitable for enjoying this nostalgic period.
I would never want to celebrate Christmas in Thailand because they can never create the real Christmas atmosphere.
celebrating Christmas in a country that is not Christian is like pincers on a pig haha.
maybe because we are creatures of habit and bring that tradition from home to here but for me it's not necessary at all! just flat commerce just like Halloween and Valentine imported from the US.
better celebrate the Thai New Year in April Songkran… that feels MUCH MORE NATURAL than that artificial bullshit
Songkran has also been ruined by commercialism and social media.
You won't find the real Songkran, as it is meant to be (almost) anywhere
In almost all countries that are not very close to the equator, solstice celebrations are traditionally customary. With reference to my earlier response, I hope you will see that the archetypal form of Christmas had nothing to do with Christianity. So you can celebrate a solstice very well without being Christian.
I agree with you that commercial motives play a role, but they do that in the Netherlands as well.
Mandatory Christmas and New Year's dinners that are unavoidable in some hotels during this period in Thailand, I hate that too, that's going too far.
On the other hand, I can still remember a stay in Rome on Christmas Day, where almost everything was closed and I had to go to the station restaurant to get something to eat in order to get a steak there for 1 guilders in 1989. to work. That's also something…
See you April!
Which country is not Christian?? Flanders has a Christian culture, although I myself am a liberal.
So you're right that it has to do with tradition (and nostalgia during childhood with the family).
The comparison with Halloween does not make sense, that came into play just a few years ago, while Christmas has long been part of the Western Christian tradition.
I have no affinity with Songkran, which is purely entertainment and has no nostalgia or cultural significance for me.
Christmas is the annual so-called family celebration, the rest of the year is apparently less important, and also the opportunity to be encouraged by the middle class to buy, especially buying and eating a lot. That pretty much sums it up. I never engage in commercially promoted nonsense, not even at Christmas. In addition, I also have no imaginary friends who live in heaven, so that makes it very easy. Don't need an excuse to invite someone or something, with me it's "Christmas" all year round, except for Christmas.
You used to be able to give the thumbs down here, but that is no longer possible otherwise I would have given it to you.
It is logical that the middle classes eagerly use it, if they don't then they are bad business people.
It's up to you whether you use it or not, right?
Here, too, everyone is welcome all year round, including Christmas. Happy days on your own.
On December 24, I stood on the balcony of my mother-in-law's house in northern Thailand.
Suddenly I heard Silent Night Holy Night from a nearby house. Christians lived there. Suddenly tears came to me. I'm not religious and had left the whole Christmas thing behind me.
But it is still part of your culture and memories come…
When I was still in the Netherlands I had already abolished the Christmas tree and decorations for years, but here in Thailand I breathed new life into it. So every year a Christmas tree with all the trimmings. And I celebrate Christmas with special friends while enjoying a nice meal and a good glass of wine, culminating in unwrapping the presents from under the tree, which is a great success every year, even for the Thais.
I also have a real, even large Christmas tree with all the trimmings in my apartment. Last year I even had a peak sent from the Netherlands (I couldn't find one here) because I don't like a star on top of the tree.
For the rest there is hardly any Christmas atmosphere and I don't miss it, to be honest. At my work there is a Christmas lunch with lottery for all employees, but apart from that, next Monday and Tuesday are normal working days at the university. And it happens to be exam week.
It is the celebration that the light returns, the solstice, centuries old has nothing to do with a nativity scene
Yes, back then it was all different. Despite the fact that I am not religious, I enjoyed Christmas in the Netherlands for a long time. With the (in-law) parents, children, grandchildren and acquaintances. The ambiance for Christmas in Thailand is not there and my Thai wife doesn't really care, other than the small cherry tree that comes out of the box and illuminates the living room and decorates it nicely. In my neighborhood in Pattaya there are four mosques a short distance away and the "Christmas carols" that blare through the neighborhood are in Arabic and that doesn't make me happy. It starts at five o'clock in the morning and during the day the songs are getting longer and longer. Strange and irritating and the thoughts of putting my house up for sale are on my mind more and more. That proud Thai who shouts Arabic through the neighborhood. I just can't understand this. The Catholic Church is some distance away on Sukhumvit Road. But I skip that too and enjoy the barbecue as always with a garden full of guests invited by my wife.
Tomorrow morning at the coffee club is Trees
From your native country you are used to doing something about Christmas .
Now in Thailand you indeed only get that feeling when you walk through a large shopping center and hear the same English music continuously.
We have 24 apartments here and have everything hanging with lights and a large Christmas tree full of lamps and balls. The tenants think that's wonderful.. In order to have a nice feeling for both the people, who have been living here for years, and also for ourselves, because we are grateful that people come to live here with us, we organize a super large BBQ every year party. Super fun and it gives the tenants and us a nice Christmas feeling, so for everyone from Chon Buri :: Merry Christmas and a healthy 2018 ..
In my hometown of Narathiwat there is no Christmas atmosphere at all. The Muslims, who form the vast majority here, don't do it and (Christmas) music is already haram (forbidden) for most of them, so you have to look for signs of Christmas with a magnifying glass. My apartment happens to have a small tree in the lobby, but that's the only sign of Christmas I've been able to discover in the city. For me personally it is not necessary at temperatures of 30+ degrees. The atmosphere isn't there anyway. We don't get any time off here for Christmas either, because Islamic schools continue as usual. I like it that way.
hello henk
I am coming to Chonburi one of these days between Dec 23rd and Jan 3rd and have been wanting to visit you for several years
maybe an address is possible, or we already have sleeping places in kirikhan / chonburi
thank you in advance
pete and thun
Pete and Thun, can you send me an email??
[email protected]
My wife said to me yesterday: More and more Thais want to celebrate Western things like Christmas and more and more Farangs want to celebrate Thai parties… whether that's true, I don't know. But that's how it went through my head when I chose Thailand to live: away from the western hassle.
And now? The last few weeks I've been watching at least one Christmas-themed movie a week… fun, uncompromising movies, in which no one is murdered, raped or robbed… and always a happy ending under the Christmas tree.
The decorations in our garden are still rather sparse and minor compared to what you see in those movies, but it looks nice from afar, when a whole row of colored lights is flashing.
But then we've had it. We don't give each other presents, we do that all year round. One of these days we will go to the cicada market in Hua Hin in the evening…. I think nice music is played there… 🙂
I tend to run away when the end-of-year celebrations are just around the corner here in the Netherlands. No better days than those days to retreat to a hamlet in the Thai countryside. Should the holiday terror set in there too, I'll look for an even more remote and primitive refuge.
I only had a Christmas tree here in Thailand when my kids were little. I thought they would know what kind of culture their father, so me, came from and that included that crazy Christmas tree thing. Now they are grown and I don't decorate a Christmas tree anymore. Wishing everyone a Happy Hanukha.
I know these conflicting feelings and the nostalgia for Christmas in our NL and B culture. But despite the warm climate in another Asian country, this holiday in the Philippines has captivated the entire population long before December 25th. The imported Catholic faith is undoubtedly the reason for this, but the enthusiasm and experience is remarkable. So much so that my Filipino wife here in Belgium finds the Christmas event here bland every year with tears in her eyes and misses the exuberance and experience of it in her village in the Philippines. The difference with Thailand is huge as far as "real" experience is concerned. Normal also with such a different culture. In Thailand it seems more like an imported fashion phenomenon, while this is also the case in the Philippines, but over the centuries it has acquired a more grounded meaning within the faith, within the growing cultural evolution, making it really "lived". Even if the cold winter or the snow is also missing. Happy end of the year I wish everyone here too!
I love all the Christmas decorations in the Shopping Malls and the Christmas carols. Also in the restaurants.
Sorry for those who don't like it...
Too bad about the many derogatory comments here. man man man…
In the past, I thought Christmas was a beautiful party in my younger years, just like the Sinterklaas party preceding it, but then I'm talking about 50+ years ago.
These days the whole Christmas party can be stolen from me.
And why, because it has become a big hyped commercial party anywhere in the world.
And if I look just to mention as an example, what happened yesterday on Christmas Day in Myanmar, then the whole Christmas party is no longer necessary for me.
The reason is that my boxes with the many Christmas items will remain in my hobby workshop this year.
The world is no longer as it used to be in my youth, also applies to my once beloved homeland Holland, where we increasingly have to surrender to old traditions, imposed by you know who.
Jan Beute.
Christmas and New Year's Eve and winter are things I would never miss if I never had to experience them again.
Yes in Thailand they only celebrate for the lights
And most people with us just to party
There is little talk of religion
I never celebrate Can eat well somewhere every day
This year I finally bought an artificial tree, balls and lights. Also nice for my daughter.
As Christmas approached and the shops were decorated, the feeling of Christmas disappeared more and more.
The family and friends don't even realize what day Christmas is.
December 30, if the children have, are they allowed to put on their clothes for Christmas???
The best moment of Christmas this year was that on Christmas Day a large box arrived from NL with games, books from friends. Simply touching.
Next Christmas we will go away from the village for a few days.
Moderator: Too many typos to post.
For those who love it, enjoy it.
If it's not for you, then let it pass you by and don't worry about it.
When I think of Christmas, I think of my childhood.
ON the night before Christmas to midnight mass and then a coffee table.
Those times are over…