When Santa Claus Came to Gaoqing County

Andy Hill

Christmas came around and my friend and I, both English teachers in the small hamlet of Gaoqing in Shandong Province, were more or less forced into donning Santa suits and singing carols for our students at a local school.

After stuffing pillows under our red felt shirts and sipping more than a few warm glasses of local brandy concealed within half-full plastic bottles of Coca Cola, we  proceeded to a stage and sang “White Christmas,” “Jingle Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in front of a crowd of hundreds of parents and teachers.

After all of the cameras flashed and we did our best Santa poses with all of the students for those assembled, we realized that we hadn’t brought civilian clothes with us to the auditorium to change back into.

We went into a local supermarket to the sounds of yelping and shrieking as children ran both towards and away from us while adults stood frozen and clutching for the cameras on their phones.

Luckily, everyone seemed to understand “Ho, ho, ho!” as we bounded to the aisle with the cheap Chinese champagne.

We made our merry purchases and stepped out onto the sidewalk to pop open our bottles of holiday hooch. The idea of going back to the apartment to change into normal clothes was now out of the question.

Santa Claus was coming to Gaoqing County.

He, or an inexplicable two of him, made appearances all across the town; at a pool hall for a few rounds of billiards, inside a food cart grilling various meats-on-sticks for a crowd of customers, even popping in at the local KTV to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Doing the can-can dance down the road and howling “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” while double-fisting cans of Nanjing was our heartfelt act of cultural diplomacy, our way of bringing some of the magic of Christmas to the little town of Gaoqing. Our cheer was roundly responded to by the young and old who ran to greet us and investigate the veracity of our long, cottony white beards.

I can only hope that someone is there this year to continue the tradition.