January 25 is important than December 25

Friends gathered to celebrate Christmas on 25th Dec 2008.

For Westerners, each year 25th December is the time that people get together with the family and church members, friends and relatives to celebrate the birth of our Savoir Lord Jesus Christ. It is the time to reunion with family members and share the love that God demonstrated on the cross of calvery. God demonstrated love to us so that we can have love for our family members, friends, relatives and to love our neighbours.

For Chinese, the 25th January is a very important day of each year. This is the day that many of the shops and restaurants (if not all) are to close through out the giant land of China. Most likely, few vehicles are to be found on the roads where traffic is always busy. A new visitor will be surprised to see 1.3 billion people have disappeared and would probably think that they must have raptured.

However, almost all members of family units in China are remained indoors and celebrate their Lunar New Year on 25th January. This is the time when they come together as a family to share, encourage, and to prophesy good and healthy life to members and friends. "Zhu ni shenti jiankang" is an expression in Chinese used most of the time to wish people especially grandparents to be healthier. On this day, alot of phone calls have to be made and send out text messages to friends and relatives to show their concern and speak good tidings upon their lives.

Many family units do not believe in the God of love, but they preach and practice love, care and show concern for each other. They want peace and harmony and ofcourse China is a peaceful place to live. People do not believe in the Blesser but every time they talk about blessings and prosperities.

I had an opportunity to come to know more local friends. I asked my friends how do they think about Christmas on the 25th December. Some friends responded and said, its the time for western people to have holidays, but for us is January 25th. Some said it is a good time to feel so good and relax. Sometimes, its a time to recieve gifts.

On the 25th December 2008, BingBing, Steven and I organized a Christmas party and invited all our friends to come to BingBing's house. (BingBing is a sister from Phils, Steven is a local friend and is also my project mate).

Sister BingBing (center) and Steven with his girl friend Rebecca.

We had good number of friends turned up for our party. Its was awesome. Some even come to know what the Christmas really means for the first. They are friendly to be with. They are more eager to learn new things.

For many Chinese, 25th December is a foreigners festival season and 25th January is Chinese festival season. Some they think that since westerners have 25th Dec so easterners have 25th January. For 25th December, the message is love and forgiveness. For 25th January, the message is love and reunion.