Christmas Around the World - China

"Kung Hei Shing Taan" (goong-hoh-sheng-tahn) from China!

Christmas Old Man or Dun Che Lao Ren (dwyn-chuh-lau-oh-run) brings gifts
to the children.

Christmas trees are called "Trees of Light." They are decorated with
paper chains, paper flowers, and paper lanterns.

Many Chinese families do not celebrate Christmas at all. The main winter
holiday is the Chinese New Year. This holiday is at the end of January.
This is when they eat big meals, get new clothes and toys, and have
fireworks and parades. A huge dragon is at the beginning of the parade,
and it symbolizes "good luck." People stand under this dragon costume and
dance around.

We made "Good Luck Dragons" in class. We also made paper chains to put on
our "Tree of Cultures."

People in China do not eat many sweet foods. Miss Fulghum gave us all a
pair of chopsticks and tried to show us how to use them. It's not easy to
do. We ate chicken chow mein and a fortune cookie.

Fortune cookies

Chicken chow mein