Making the Most of the Chinese New Year

The Lunar New Year fireworks here in Beijing were as expected; loud, continuous, and terrible for air quality. All day long on the 19^th we could hear fireworks being lit, but it wasn’t until the evening that they really started to pick up. From our apartment we could see numerous locations shooting them off all night. Just outside our apartment someone decided that the middle of a 4 lane street would be a good place for large star bursts and stopped traffic for a few minutes. As midnight approached the intensity increased right up to 12. After that, I don’t know what happened as I went to bed. Unfortunately the air quality went from pm 2.5 at about 70 which is good, to over 400 by midnight, which is the most hazardous level and almost off the charts.

Today, the city has been largely quiet and slowly the air quality has gotten better, but it still looks pretty smoky out there and we can still hear a faint pop-pop. Since it was so quiet I thought I would ride Aya’s ebike over to Ikea to check out their damaged goods. I assumed not many people would be there as most people are spending the day with family. Of course, I was wrong. Ikea was packed, mostly with people gobbling 1 dollar sausages from the snack stand or sleeping full out on sofas and beds. A few people were actually shopping.

The place is so absurd at times, its hard not to ask "why?" The longer I am in China and Beijing the more I am getting back into being curious about the Chinese and China’s history. Before my work ended last week I decided I would check out a few sites around the city as not so many people would be there and so made plans as well as checking out some books about China from the library. That turned out to be a good idea. I went to the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower as well as the Llama Temple and Tiananmen at dusk for the flag lowering and the next day to the National Museum. Besides being sites around the city, they also provided a slice of Beijing life. At the drum tower only bits of one of the original 12 drums remain, likely the rest were destroyed during some revolution. There are so many in the past 100 years its hard to say when. At Tainanmen the soldiers and crowd were silent except for the couple right next to me who argued loudly the entire ceremony. At the national museum I had my ebike battery in my backpack so it wouldn’t get stolen. When I went through security the female guard asked me what it was. While I understood her question, I didn’t know the word for it nor how she couldn’t know what it was. Everyone and their mother has some sort of ebike in Beijing, they are everywhere. Thankfully the guy behind me saved me and told her what it was, denji? Not really sure, but it sounded like the Japanese denchi, which means battery so I am guessing they are similar.
I’ve also been watching classic Chinese movies each night like, To Live and Red Sorghum. Both of which I like and have watched before, but Zhang Yimou (the director) will be visiting my school next week, so I thought I would brush up on my viewing. I also have watched a few documentaries to fill in the non-fiction gaps such as the three part PBS series 'A Century of Revolution' and one on Tiananmen square 89'.  During the afternoons I had been reading up a bit from I Chose China, Last Days of Old Beijing, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, and Factory Girls. Last Days of Old Beijing has been the most interesting because its written by a foreigner living in the hutongs south of Tiananmen and I can relate most closely with his curiosity and viewpoints as he laments the economic progress of China razing its cultural history.  I actually saw a character 拆 Chai on a wall on the way to Ikea today! The city is still tearing itself apart.

So far I have enjoyed my break quite a bit. Though this place often makes me scratch my head, its never boring and I don’t think it will be for some time.  Now, one more thing to do before getting back to work on Monday, do my Chinese homework for my lesson on Tuesday!

CNY

Chinese New Year is the most important calendar event in China. It marks the beginning of the new year, the first term of the solar term and marks the end of winter. Never mind that it takes place in January, if the Chinese say its Spring, collectively, it is Spring. Fifteen days after the beginning of the CNY is the Lantern Festival, which marks the end of celebration. People buy all sorts of things for CNY, it’s like Christmas in the U.S. Families gather together and have a feast while red decorations sporting sayings like, “good luck”, “wealth”, “happiness” are put around homes and entrance ways. This year is the year of the dragon, so there are an awful lot of dragon decorations too. I even made one myself.I took foam board and cut out pieces, then fit the pieces together. Anyways, back on topic. There are two particularly spectacular things about CNY as I see. The first is that most people return to their home cities/villages to spend time with family. Think about Christmas travel in the U.S….. got it? Now multiply that by 4. Two billion journeys are registered by plane, train, car, bus, scooter, etc. Really, people pack up their belongings on a scooter, with the kids, and head for their home village. I’m sure it takes days, but hey, they get there. This is the biggest migration in the world and in Shanghai it’s easy to see. The days leading up to CNY see people frantically moving about, but the day after the holiday begins this place is a ghost town. The second are fireworks. Fireworks are supposed to ward off evil spirits and so can be heard many times throughout the year for various reasons, but during the CNY it seems like every moment of every day is filled with the sound of fire crackers going off. On the 1st night and 15th night especially, people pull out all the stops. This year we went to our roof at midnight on the first day to see the fireworks. Looking out across Shanghai, in every direction, where bright fireworks and the noise was deafening. It was beautiful. I’d never seen anything like it. Of course there are lots of negative side affects to this, it’s really noisy, for one and after a while it gets quite annoying because people light of fire crackers no matter what time of day it is. Apparently 5am is a good time to ward off evil spirits. I’m trying to sleep! It’s also putting tons of smoke into the already polluted air. Some estimates I saw put it at 50 times the normal level of pollution on CNY. There are also always lots of injuries and damage because, while many of these are heavy duty shoot up 100 ft into the sky and explode in a rain of burning embers type of fireworks it seems like anybody can light them off. There are some going off on the street corner by my apartment right now, literally showering people. I’m not sure if all this leads to “happiness” “wealth” or “good luck”, but an awful lot of people seem to think so. In all, I think it’s a special time of year, the city comes alive. I just wish they would keep it down a little. I’m trying to sleep.