Chinese university bans Christmas
A university in northwestern China has reportedly banned Christmas, labeling it a ‘kitsch’ foreign celebration and making students watch propaganda films instead.
According to local media in China, the Modern College of Northwest University had strung up banners around the campus reading "Strive to be outstanding sons and daughters of China, oppose kitsch Western holidays" and "Resist the expansion of Western culture".
A student said they would be punished if they did not attend a mandatory three-hour screening of propaganda films, which other students said included one about Confucius, with teachers standing guard to stop people leaving, Reuters reports.
"There's nothing we can do about it, we can't escape," the student was quoted as saying.
An official microblog of one of the university's Communist Party's committees has called on students to pay more attention to Chinese holidays like the Spring Festival.
"In recent years, more and more Chinese have started to attach importance to Western festivals," it wrote.
"In their eyes, the West is more developed than China, and they think that their holidays are more elegant than ours, even that Western festivals are very fashionable and China's traditional festivals are old fashioned."
While Christmas is not a traditional festival in China it has been growing in popularity, especially in more metropolitan areas where young people give gifts and decorate their homes.
Wenzhou, a city in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang, has banned all Christmas activities in schools and kindergartens, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Inspectors would make sure rules are enforced, it added.
The rules are meant to counteract an ’obsession’ with Western holidays at the expense of Chinese ones, an official at the city's education bureau reportedly said.
Afternoon news break – December 26
