圣诞节 Christmas 🎁🎄 · TrustyChinese

圣诞节 Christmas 🎁🎄

A short post about Christmas in Chinese!

Christmas is not a national holiday in China, nor is it widely celebrated as a religious festival there (although there are Chinese Christians who will celebrate it as such). It’s most celebrated as a commercial holiday.

One way that people celebrate Christmas is by gifting apples, often with messages carved into them or with decorations. I’ve attached some images below!

This is because of a play on words, which are very common in Mandarin!:

平安夜 píng ān yè = peaceful night = Christmas Eve.

苹果 píng guǒ = apple.

Both characters for píng in these words shared the same component 平. (The one in apple just has the ‘grass’ radical on top of it too).

These Christmas apples are known as 平安果 (Peace apples).

Some other Christmas key words:

过 guò - to pass/celebrate

庆祝 qìng zhù - to celebrate

圣诞节 shèng dàn jié - Christmas

祝你 zhù nǐ - wish you

圣诞快乐 shèng dàn kuài lè - Christmas happy > Happy Christmas

和家人一起 hé jiā rén yī qǐ - with family