If there is a time for real celebration around the world, it definitely is around and during Christmas time! For this writer, travel has been a passion all along; his peregrination has also coincided with being overseas during Christmas time, making it doubly delightful.
 Xmas Greetings It is December 1980 when Ms. Katherine Mitchell at the American Embassy in Berne, Switzerland, hands me my passport with her signed visa stamped on it. Ms. Mitchell wishes me a merry and white Christmas, and happy travel on my bicycle, in a land that was swept by snow, and temperatures dipping below freezing levels on the American east coast. The blizzards and the continous bad weather deprive the author of the joy of pedalling away across America, and the American discoveries have to wait.
A few weeks earlier, when this writer was crossing into communist East Germany (when it was the days of a federal west and communist east, in Germany, nine years before their re-unification), Christmas trees and serial lamps were surprisingly everywhere, along the route from Hamburg to Berlin. The communist shopping “malls” were glorified grocery stores called “intershoppe” where the 1:1 German west-east currency exchange would pale with shop employees asking for dollars, offering five times the exchange rate “under the table”. They would get even better rates with their connections.. “It’s Christmas time, and anything goes, to celebrate the festive days”, they argued.. To make the celebrations grander, the food, the wine, the clothes (east European winter imports) and the gifts were so cheap under the Communists’ planned economy, that with 10 American dollars, one could live like a king for a whole day! Reaching East Berlin, this writer is introduced to state official Helga Bechstein and to Berlin’s Indian news correspondent, Kunhanandan Nair, who serves cooked rice and yoghurt, south Indian style, making Communist Berlin a home away from home.
Perhaps, one cannot experience a more joyful celebration of Christmas, in all its gaeity and traditional style, than at a country that has a great size of its population steeped in poverty. However, Christmastime weaves a magical spell in the Philippines archipelago. The spirit starts with the “ber” months; come September and October, the radio stations are flooded with requests of Christmas songs of Jim Reeves and Cliff Richards to be played. The stations promptly oblige the listeners, kick-starting the celebrations. By November, all the shopping arcades and malls lining the Ayala Avenue in capital Manila and elsewhere are decked up in pleasing ambience, welcoming visitors with the trademark greeting, “Mabuhay”, offering more and more freebies to visitors and customers.. Come December, the city’s coastal thoroughfare, Roxas Boulevard joins in the act, setting up large, pretty lighted lanterns along the road. Mid-December, and one can can see the crowds thronging the mall;Christmas radiates cheer, Christmas gives hope, and more important, gives the spirit of giving.. if the goodies and the freebies at the Landmark and Glorietta malls are not enough, the poor, standing outside the malls, offer value addition in selling gift wrappers and wrapping the shoppers’ gifts at no charge. One newly-married couple goest back to Glorietta, gets a T shirt and returns to the poor packer outside, handing over their Christmas gift.. “Maraming Salamat”, says the packer, profusely thanking the couple. It is night-time and Roxas Boulevard has a special show by school children, singing Christmas carols in English and Tagalog. The little minstels turn lovely entertainers, and the night is filled with smiles everywhere.
Bidding adieu and saying “Salamat” to my Filipino friends at the Gillarmi hotel, spouse Ann and I fly into Hong Kong. At the Pacific Coffee kiosk, a group of “Santa” children greet us, and we push candies into their hands. We board the A21 bus to Tsim Sha Tsui. Nathan Road is busy as usual, with bumpered traffic. Name boards from buildings cantilever across the road that is a shopping paradise for tourists.
The next morning, as we come out of Holiday Inn, we are struck by a strange sight. Nathan Road, that had busy traffic last night, presents a picture of not a single vehicle this morning; as we see pedestrians walking on the driving lanes, our hotel manager informs us that Nathan Road is, for Christmas Eve, closed to vehicular traffic, and converted into a “walking street” for this day.
By the afternoon, hundreds of pedestrians start to arrive at Salisbury Road overlooking Hong Kong’s Manhattan across the sea waters. With an hour to midnight, Nathan is teeming with a hundred thousand cheerleaders. That’s when the fantastic fireworks display begins, across Salisbury Road. The crowd’s cheer rises and rises and we debate if the sound can be heard in China’s faraway Shenzhen city. Wireless-equipped police officials help their colleagues keep abreast of the situation, while ambulances are on the ready, just in case…
As the LCD screen near our hotel starts the countdown, it seems that a million others are joining in, saying, 5,4,3,2,1…..Merry Christmas! All of us cheer and shake hands with each other.. Opposite the Mirador Mansion, school students begin a chorus of carols and the crowd rings an applause.. further away, a group of university students pose with different sized-bells, tapping them in perfect rhythm to play “Jingle Bell” and more…
It is 6 AM and it is day-break when we head back to our hotel. Our mind’s eye registers a most memorable evening and most magnificent night heralding Christmas!
From MJ Krishna, travel writer
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