The Christmas Season

Well, it's the Christmas Season in Taiwan now... sort of. There are few displays of the Christmas spirit here in Kaohsiung, and the ones that do exist remind me of how important it is to just stick to what you know. Imagine if you will, businesses in St. George trying to capitalize on the kwanza season, and you could probably get a fairly accurate picture of what the Christmas season is like here. The stores that have Christmas music playing seem to have just grabbed the cheapest 4 song cd that says "christmas" on it and put in, assuming that it's what we all listen to back in the states, and the play it over and over again. One store seems to have gotten a hold of a cd made by a choir of deaf children; really that's what it sounded like. My favorite though, are the businesses who don't want to go and purchase actual christmas decor, so they just half-heartedly modify what they've got. One business has a cut out of a dude holding a tube of toothpaste out front and they just took some cotton balls and made a Santa Slaus beard for him. However, they either ran out of cotton balls or got bored, because he's only got half a beard. A guy I know said he was driving down the road and saw a store window with "Merry X" painted in the window.

Christmas is normal in the Yang house though. We have a nice tree, as you can see in the pictures. It's kind of cool, because since Steve travels around the world so much he's got Christmas decorations from all over the world.