Shèngdàn Lǎorén

Christmas Old Man: shèng” means saint; dàn” means birth

Graphics by Mike Knight

Magic, as an art form, has a unique ability to bridge cultures, captivate audiences, and inspire wonder. In China, particularly in the modern city of Shenzhen—a city renowned for its extraordinary speedy development —performing magic there blends the traditional mystique and modern flair. The charm of performing magic in Shenzhen's, touching upon cultural significance, audience engagement, and the evolving nature of magic in this dynamic environment.

Magic often symbolizes the unknown and the fantastical, resonating with the Chinese appreciation for storytelling against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world. As a traditional American I’ve always been drawn to the allure of the mysterious Orient with its unconventional lifestyle. Shenzhen is the crossroads where Old World China intermingles with contemporary China.

A trait of mine, is I love travel. it’s not necessarily the destination that matters to me as much as it is getting there. I'm on the look-out for adventure but also for self-discovery and understanding my place in the world. After 40-plus years of touring I found self-discovery is an ongoing process lasting infinitely into our next life. Its a never ending cycle. For people like myself travel serves as a metaphor for exploring not only physical landscapes but also my inner self. With each new place I go, I learn more about who I am. Going places really is for the youth on a route of discovery. I am older now, so I spend time with Randy out in the country, surrounded by our pets, nature and solitude, very happy this is what I finally found.

This is an article I shared last year about one of my trips to China, It focuses more on the journey than the end of the journey. I wanted to share it again, because it reminds me of Christmas in that every American restaurant I entered in Shenzhen China featured a SantaClaus or other Christmas decor, even though it was early fall. This was because The western character Santa Claus symbolizes America to the Chinese just as the Chinese dragon represents China to the Americans. I took a inquisitive delight upon learning this fact, and all I could think was many Western magician props are painted with Chinese symbols. I hope you enjoy traveling along with me today, And as a bonus I have posted a rare performance of The Pendragons in China. Video 👇

On one late summer/early fall day in the early 2000s, my plane landed in Hong Kong and I headed for the city of Shenzhen, located in mainland China. There were four of us wandering - looking for our transportation to Shenzhen. All I could see was a sea of buses, and all the signs, billboards, and directions were written in Chinese, making it a disorienting experience as I searched for our ride. We must have appeared as helpless, lost souls to the hundreds of experienced Chinese travelers who walked determinedly toward their destinations. Our directions were in English, so they didn’t help. The only common denominator between English and Chinese was numbers. So we all headed in the direction of Dock 18. There, we found a sweet little Chinese travel guide who spoke no English but, through sign language and much enthusiasm, convinced us to board our bus. We had to trust this stranger because she was our only hope, and it was my best guess if she was even our handler, but we listened to her, and she pointed us the right way.

The bus wound its way through the concrete hills of Hong Kong, buildings on either side of us shooting up hundreds of feet into the sky as we made our way to the border of mainland China. Suddenly, I felt a deep, melancholy feeling, experiencing homesickness like I’d never felt before when our assistant David Miller commented on the absence of English and any other language using the Latin alphabet. Not being able to read is an unsettling feeling, and I realized this was the source of my discomfort. Still, the bus was clean and luxurious with spacious seats, so I just settled in with amazement, watching out the window at the dense skyscrapers lifting my gaze to the sky like a thick forest of cypress trees reaching for the heavens with their potent symbolism promising hope and immortality. With their impressive height, the skyscrapers stood like cypress trees with a foot in the other world, taking man’s imagination with them as they pointed toward eternity. It was a work of art and a reminder of Van Gogh’s Starry Nights, where twirling stars circle the moon touched by tips of the trees connecting the two worlds, a symbolic self-portrait of Van Gogh, as some experts suggest. After the 16-hour flight from the United States, I fell asleep thinking of Van Gogh’s words about his iconic painting, “But the sight of the stars always makes me dream.” Although the sun was out, I fell fast asleep.

Skyscrapers in Hong Kong

Italian Cypress trees in Tuscany. Van Gogh’s Starry Night in second photo.

Waking from my starry dream, we arrived at the crowded, chaotic border, where we disembarked with our belongings, including a few heavy, awkward props we hand-carried. (Welcome to my life of glamour. 😏) The crates were easy to move because they were all on wheels, but the difficulty came when we moved them through a narrow turnstile designed only for day travelers carrying one bag. It wasn’t easy carrying our luggage through customs, let alone the two large crates. David and Jonathan did most of the lifting, but eventually, we were able to clear customs and were free to be lost again. Lol! There we were, searching for our way, when an official of some sort motioned to the correct bus, which, like the turnstile, was designed for day commuters going back and forth between Hong Kong and mainland China carrying only briefcases and purses. So our large crates barely fit in the luggage compartment. We were on the bus for five minutes when we reached our destination and another customs stop for the few foreign travelers taking this route to China. Déjà vu, we had to go through the same procedure as when we departed Customs a few minutes earlier. Our common sense was our guide pointing us the right way. It must’ve worked because when we left customs, a car awaited us for the final leg of this long journey to our Shenzhen hotel.

Buses in Hong Kong

After 16 hours in the air and a 2-hour drive to Shenzhen plus 3 hours from our doorstep to board our flight at LAX, we'd been up 21 hours. I was ready for bed, but we were invited to a dinner and obligated to attend. My travel transformer didn't work, and our heavy-duty one was freighted and unavailable, so my translator sent me to a hairdresser around the corner where, for $2, my hair was washed and styled. This became a daily hangout for our assistants and myself, where we would have our hair done daily and for $5 for a massage. I recall one day, the three of us receiving a full-body massage, each of us in our booths separated by a curtain so we could listen to sounds in each other's booths. Several masseuses entered David’s booth and began quizzing him in very broken English about learning English and wanting to take lessons when our assistant Carrie-Ann called him not to talk so we could enjoy our massages. It was a hilarious moment because the last thing you would expect during a massage is a language course. Still, everywhere I went in Shenzhen, the Chinese were eager to learn and speak English, including during meet and greets, audience members would approach us to practice English. Back at the Chinese hotel, we met our hosts at an American restaurant for dinner, where they hoped for our enthusiasm. It was American food, but not the same. Just like Chinese cuisine in America is not quite right to the Chinese palate. I ordered a weird hamburger with a strange, sweet-tasting bun too soft for hamburgers and resembling an English Muffin. The meat was more like Sloppy Joe filling. Not in the league of In-N-Out burgers! 😂 🍔 I was hungry that evening, so anything tasted good. These types of hamburgers are sold on the streets in parts of China like tacos here in California. The food was interesting, but what most intrigued me were the decorations deemed American: Santa Claus centerpieces on the tables, and in a corner stood a Christmas tree. I couldn’t figure it out. Did they forget to take the decorations down at Christmas? What was up? The answer came a few days later.

Chinese hamburger with it’s sweet soft English Muffin type bun

Our contract called for an American five-star hotel, but the hotel we were staying in was a Chinese five-star hotel. I didn’t see the difference, except it may not have been stylish and cosmopolitan, and English was rare. It did have an American restaurant, which, after my experience at the previous American restaurant, I was reluctant to try. After a long night’s rest and loading our show into the theater the next day with a KFC lunch and afternoon rehearsals, we returned to the hotel, starving for dinner. Our translator retired for the day, so my two assistants and I were alone. We checked out the Chinese restaurant, but it was so authentic none of us wanted to try it, so we ended up at the hotel’s American restaurant. The menu and service were in Chinese, but we could point to the pictures for our server. Because of my experience with the odd-tasting burger the previous night, I ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce and sausage. It was served with wet naked noodles poured over a bed of sauce with a big sausage resembling an Oscar Meyer Braunschweiger roll. 🙈 They tried. I hoped for more since Marco Polo imported Chinese noodles to Italy, a predecessor to the Italian spaghetti pasta, with which I am more familiar. It wasn’t too bad, but I didn't touch the meat. I looked around their restaurant and noticed Christmas decor, which also overwhelmed this restaurant. The American theme included a popcorn machine and a hot dog cart. It would’ve been nice if they were working because I was craving a good hotdog and bag of popcorn following that meal. Lol!

Pasta similar to the spaghetti I ordered. Mine was placed on a bed of marinara sauce and my one sausage was shorter and thicker

No one could tell us the purpose of these Christmas decorations, so we left the restaurant just as confused as we did the night before. We finished our second day with drinks at the rooftop bar, and we needed one too. The drinks were cheap compared to the cost in the US, and a Canadian sitting near us overheard our conversation and interrupted to tell us how, in the American hotels in China, prices for everything matched the same prices as the hotels stateside. So once you step into a Hyatt or Four Seasons or a Wyndham in Shenzhen, you may as well be in New York or Beverly Hills. You pay the same prices. A white Russian at the Chinese hotel bar was about $3 compared to $10 at one of the American hotels. Our new Canadian friend also mentioned that many Canadians were moving to Shenzhen because the cost of living was low. He and his wife were from Vancouver looking for a condominium. Shenzhen, the Orlando of China, was undoubtedly inviting, but I don’t think I would consider being an expat in China. I passed on that idea and decided to check out the nighttime skyline, which tells a different story about a city after dark in its lights. I looked over across the rooftop to the next building and noticed a giant blowup Santa Claus doll sitting in front of the entrance of The American Barbeque restaurant. I’ve never seen so many American restaurants, and I was in China, and more Christmas decorations? I had to find out what that was all about. So I asked my Canadian friend if he understood this phenomenon, and he said in China, Santa Claus is the iconic symbol of America. Santa Claus represents America to the Chinese as the Dragon is what an American visualizes when thinking of China. Hence, Santa Clauses were everywhere on anything American. In China Santa is called Shèngdàn Lǎorén meaning Old Christmas Man: shèng” means saint; dàn” means birth. I didn't notice this peculiarity on my previous trips to China because I always stayed in American Hotels, which ironically featured no Santa Clauses

Santa Claus blow up doll in China

What I have noticed during my time abroad is the lack of Christmas religious displays in all the Asian countries I lived or visited. In Malaysia and Singapore, Christmas is heavily celebrated, featuring spectacular secular exhibits of lit parks, fireworks, and presentations rivaling Disney. I compare these to the somber Christmas I once spent in Berlin, where the Christmas decor is sparse and only shown for a few days. It's gone as quickly as it appears. But in comparison, in Asia, the celebrations are epic. In some ways, Asians may be more honest about their observance of Christmas, understanding the essence of the day is about the celebration of light and the sun, the fantastic displays of bright and lit decorations with fireworks bringing in the days of more sunshine. There is no evidence proving when Jesus was born. The scenery surrounding the description of Jesus’ birth points to an early fall date as the more accurate time of his birth. December 25 is a convenient day to recognize his birth by those worshipping Mithras and Saturnalia thousands of years before the birth of Jesus because they were already celebrating December 25 as the birth of their two Persian and Roman gods. It also marked the mid-winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, around December 21 to 23, with influential links to the evolution from dark days of winter and the celebration of light and warmth the sun brings as each day becomes longer following these sun worshipping pagan holidays. Constantine made Christmas an official Christian holiday celebrating Jesus’ birthday after he decriminalized the religion and promoted it, replacing Mithras with Jesus. In doing so, all the customs and traditions practiced celebrating the birthday of Mithras were adopted by those observing Christ’s assigned birthdate. If you closely follow the Bible, you know none of this is scriptural.

Christmas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Subdued Christmas in Berlin

“In the 5th century, the Western church ordered the feast [of the Savior’s birth] to be celebrated on the day of the Mithraic rites of the birth of the sun and at the close of the Saturnalia, as no certain knowledge of the day of [Messiah’s] birth existed. Among the German and Celtic tribes, the winter solstice was considered an important point of the year, and to commemorate the return of the sun, they held their chief festival of yule, which, like other pagan celebrations, became adapted to Christmas” (Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 6, p. 622).

The Chinese welcome the sun's return, celebrating the winter solstice with Dong Zhi (“Winter Arrives”), welcoming the return of longer days, and the correlating increase in positive energy in the upcoming year. Could they adopt secular Christmas practices to correspond with their Dong Zhi Day? Similar to the way early Christians were heavily influenced by the gods Mithras and Saturnalia, incorporating their practices and traditions as a way to celebrate Jesus' proposed birthday. Whether that’s true, it’s hard to tell, but these two corresponding holidays meet together on the same days in winter, coinciding with the winter solstice. Here, I leave you to ponder these cultural mysteries as I reflect on that twilight evening, watching a Santa light the way to an American barbeque high on the rooftop of a building in Shenzhen, China, with a skyscraper backdrop in early fall the night before my first show in Shenzhen thinking about Shèngdàn Lǎorén the Chinese name given Santa (shèng)” means saint; (dàn)” means birth. An American saint and the reason for the season in China.

Happy Valley in Shenzhen where we performed our show for several weeks