Culturally, Christmas is not an important holiday in Taiwan. Most people in Taiwan are Buddhists, Taoists, or follow local folk religions (more or less eagerly). Christians make only roughly 6% of the population, and churches are not very visible in Taipei’s architecture nor it’s culture.
And yet, as a (mostly commercial) festival, Christmas is very visible, especially in the shopping districts of Xinyi. Around the malls and pavilions, Christmas blends with New Year’s Eve and Lunar New Year to a mega-holiday, often spanning the whole of December and January.
After growing up with more traditional Christmas markets, it took me a while to get used to the mix of fake fir trees, smiling rabbits (in 2022) announcing the next lunar year, and balloon characters – all together with sometimes springlike 20°C. Yet, people are genuinely enjoying it, and I can now appreciate the creativity that goes into small performances, pop up shops, and marketing grandiloquence.
