What's that over there, in those trees? Oh, look: it's China!
China has embraced Christmas. Shanghaiist knows this because last year on Christmas Eve we left a beer and a plate of snacks out for Santa (or his Chinese equivalent, Dun Che Lao Ren), and in the morning they were gone. Unless that was our roommate stumbling in from the Dragon Club at 6 am.
Unfortunately, China also seems to have embraced the disturbing trend found in many western countries of getting ready for Christmas far too early. Last week, Shanghaiist snapped this photo of a gentleman painting a Christmas message on Weihai Lu, three whole months before the big day. It’s clearly a ploy to get people into the shops and spending money as quickly possible -- something that we would never stoop to. (Okay, one of us might).
Then again, it’s encouraging to see that this country’s former trend of leaving decorations up for the entire year is going by the wayside ...
So, in case we're the last ones to say it, Shanghaiist would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas.
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those words on the wall, they were there a looong time ago. i assure you, it's much longer than just one or two weeks ago. i know that cuz i live on Weihai Road and i walk past those words every morning i go to work.
what's "dun che lao ren"? I though it should be shen dan lao ren.
Thanks for pointing that out, Ashley. The guy seemed to have his hands all over the wall, so I assumed he was painting the Christmas message. Maybe he, too, was frustrated at seeing Seasons Greetings in September and was actually trying to remove it ...
As for Dun Che Lao Ren and Shen Dan Lao Ren, I have absolutely no idea. But the former beat the latter by 754 Google hits to 40, so I ran with the former. Perhaps someone can give us a definitive answer on this.
Since Chinese people don't normally write in pinyin, using the actual Chinese characters makes for a better usage comparison: 圣诞老人 (Sheng Dan Lao Ren) gets 770000 Google hits, while 蹬车老人 (Deng Che Lao Ren) only gets 357000.
Actually I'm a bit surprised that the message was not removed. Construction workers have been renovating and cleaning the walls and old buildings on both sides of Weihai Road for the past month. (The noise was unbearable...Thank God that they're finally finished! ) Maybe they found the doodle quite neat, so they didn't bother to remove it or cover it up. They actually repainted it, I think.
As for Dun Che Lao Ren, I have no idea where you got that pinyin. Lao Ren means old people, but Dun Che doesn't make sense. Guess that's why Brad changed it into Deng Che Lao Ren in his post. But still... I don't know any Chinese people who would call Santa Deng Che Lao Ren... It should be Sheng Dan Lao Ren.
Oops...I don't know why I changed it to "deng che". I don't know what "dun che" means, and have never heard Santa called Dun Che Lao Ren. I couldn't find any reference to the Chinese characters from the several English-language sites that claim that's what he's called in Chinese.
sheng dan lao ren=Xmas old man
Dun che lao ren=old man riding a bicycle?
old man riding a bicycle=Deng Che Lao Ren
Dun Che Lao Ren doesn't make sense. I cannot think of a meaningful Chinese phrase according to pinyin Dun Che.
With all due respect to Shamus, I'm a local so I figure I'm obligated to announce the verdict here. Santa is called Sheng4 Dan4 Lao3 Ren2 圣诞老人 in Chinese, like what Brad put. Have no clue where does "Dun Che" come from, doesn't make any sense to me.
Bloody internet! I thought every piece of information found on every single website could be trusted to be accurate. Seems I was wrong. That's the last time I'll go Googling for "Names for Santa around the world", trust me.