IN STEREO

I believe in going to the ceremony of Christmas Day: it’s really nice to go to the church because they have special prayers on this day. They only pray it on Christmas, so it’s really special – especially in the Nativity Church. They do kind of a mass at night. Everybody goes to it! Small children, old people, everybody. [They talk about] how Jesus was born, and how we should be forgiving, and that you shouldn’t be only about looks and about money, and that Christmas is not [about] putting a tree in your house and doing the fanciest food. Because you know, Jesus was born in kind of a cave. He was born in a small cave with the sheep. So you put [up] this fancy tree, fancy decorations – but actually, it wasn’t like that. You have to be simple on Christmas. Because it represents a newborn, a new life, new decisions.

But even if they say this in the church, if you walk in on Christmas, it’s really well-decorated with gold. So even if they say these things, they don’t show these things. But you can’t change how things are. There’s a lot who go to pray – I don’t deny that. But I could tell you, there’s a lot who go to see each other. You see these people; they have a relationship [and] they stay outside talking. So a girl will tell her parents, “I’m going to the church.” Actually, she’s staying outside of the church with her boyfriend. We’ve all done it at some point. It’s nice: you see young people gathering, talking. It’s a nice occasion, let’s say, because it brings people together at a certain point. But then the next day, nobody knows one another! Nobody knows nobody. – Jina