Christmas in East Asia

The eastern part of Asia comprises mainly of China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Vietnam. Christians in these regions celebrate 25th December by lighting their houses with beautiful paper lanterns and decorating their Christmas trees, which they call "Trees of Light," with paper chains, paper flowers, and paper lanterns. Chinese Children hang muslin stockings and await a visit from Santa Claus, whom they call Dun Che Lao Ren (dwyn-chuh-lau-oh-run) which means "Christmas Old Man."

There is no official celebration of Christmas in Japan as less than one percent of the population is Christian. There is an unofficial widespread secular observance of Christmas due to the influence of Americans after the war. The trees are decorated with small toys, dolls, ornaments, gold paper fans, lanterns, and even wind chimes. Candles are also placed on the branches. One of the most popular ornaments is the origami swan.

Every Korean church would have some kind of Christmas music program on Christmas day. Koreans also love to decorate for Christmas, every coffee shop is decorated for the season. Also, Christmas decorations stayed up past the holiday season. Christmas day is spent shopping and most of the Korean families spending the day together going from shop to shop just "eye shopping".