The More Fundamental Truth

I’m off for a week to Japan tomorrow.  Happy, for the chance to see Tokyo, sad to leave family behind for days on end.  When I return, it will be nearly Christmas and so today was the last day to make good on the suggestion that we get the Christmas tree this weekend.  As the crow makes her way, it’s only one hundred yards to get to the lot where there are trees for sale, but given the walls that surround our compound and the Arctic weather I had the girls pile into our car and drive over to make our purchase. 

I was a bit hesitant.  I’ve ridden by the location every day, twice a day heading out to the gym and making my return.  There is a Christmas tree or two, clearly.  But there wasn’t anyone standing there and in years past there were many dozens on display?  Had the local authorities forced them to move elsewhere this year?  Would anyone be on site to take my money this afternoon?  I got some cash at the ATM and rode over, and noticing a young woman standing by the trees, I parked the car on the bridge and led the troop over to inspect the flora for sale.

This blog has written about this process every year for five years or so now so I’ll be brief, but in China, you don’t cut down Christmas trees.  You buy the trees potted, soil and all.  They don’t smell particularly pine-y.  They dry out and die quickly.  But the end is no worse than it is for a guillotined tree, back home.  But the cost is.  I don’t know what y’all pay to buy trees in urban jungles like SF and NYC these days, but I suspect its less than $100.00?  This young lady, who remembered me from years gone by, started the negotiation at $125.00

And when I asked the lady where the other trees were, she said: “We only have a few.  It’s not good selling trees this year.  There are no foreigners.”  “Is that right?”  “Yes.  We used to sell lots of trees this time of year.  These days, forget it.” 

We picked a big tall tree, perhaps eight or more feet tall that was reasonably shaped.  She told me she’d be losing money selling it to me for $90.00.  I got loud and with a smile said that was nonsense and she’d bought it for $10.00, so how could you lose anything and we shook our heads I put money in her pocket and she insisted on more and amicably settled and I told her where I lived and asked if she’d be there soon and she confirmed that her crew would have it over shortly. 

Leaving I was reflective.  Perhaps the foreigners who used to celebrate Christmas have begun to congeal in a different part of town.   Perhaps there’s a better place to get trees these days.  But the more fundamental truth is obvious.  Foreigners who used to broadly occupy this neighborhood, have mostly returned home and been replaced by Chinese who may have foreign passports and attend international schools but they don’t apparently bother much with Christmas trees.  The Christmas tree index, then are a proxy for the degree to which Beijing waxes or wanes as an international city.   The data-point of this young woman to day, a depressingly isolationist auger.

Sunday, 12/16/18