Sam and I got to China just in time to witness the party: Chinese New Year. He stole my thunder and wrote about it before I did, but since I have neglected this blog so shamefully the past several months, I can't really mind much.
New Year is sort of extreme here. People here say it's like Christmas for the U.S., but I've found that to be something of a drastic understatement. Fireworks every night for two weeks, with occasional bursts during the day, is a bit more celebration than we put into Christmas.
That sort of gives the wrong impression, like it's a Fourth of July show every night and all day for two weeks, since it starts gradually. At first it's just intermittent crashes and booms and pops at sporadic times during the day and evening. Most of the time we couldn't see them but could hear them. Fin got to the point where he just slept through it, except for the occasional bark to show his displeasure.
Then New Year's Eve happened--Sunday night.
Oh boy did we see those. And hear them. Sam posted a video he took of the fireworks show our complex did [we think it was our complex, but it's hard to be sure since there's a fireworks stand on every corner in the city], which took place in the courtyard literally right below us. The thirteenth floor is pretty much the best place to watch fireworks, since at that height most of them are eye-level. We have fireworks remnants on our porch from how close the explosions were to us. It was pretty fantastic--like our own personal show. I felt a little guilty I hadn't paid to see it, since it was that spectacular. Left all the Fourth of July shows I've seen way behind. Anyway, that started at 11:30 and went for at least an hour, though by the end we were keeping Fin company in his bunker so I'm not sure when they stopped.
And those weren't all. There were at least two or three shows just as fantastic as ours that we could see, plus some people shooting fireworks off their balconies, plus a whole lot more we could hear but couldn't see. I've never been in a war zone and don't want to trivialize that sort of experience at all, but it literally felt like we were being thoroughly shelled--only it was very pretty to watch.
As I said, Fin was ok with the fireworks prior to and since Sunday [yes, people are still doing fireworks and, though the scale is not quite as great, the ones we've seen still go on for some duration and are very impressive], but he met his Waterloo on Sunday night--particularly with the fireworks show our apartments did. I think it was a combination of what must be deafening noise for him as well as bright colors quite literally close enough to touch. He had a little breakdown, poor guy. It started with him being in the room with us while we watched, barking, and degenerated to whimpering and whining and ended with him in the bathroom across the hall, whimpering and breathing heavily. He started off with just the bathroom but eventually fled to the shower, which I guess was about as cave-like a place as he could find. I christened it his bunker.
Once Sam and I were done with the show--and it went on a good half hour or so after we were--we joined Fin in the bathroom and shut the door. Having the door shut helped a lot to calm him down, so he wasn't whimpering or panting any more. And then, heartless owners that we are, we saw his confined to a small space as an opportunity to brush him without him being able to squirm away. Which we did. Mercilessly.
Eventually the really close fireworks show ended, though we could still hear a lot going on elsewhere, and we went to bed. Fin was very leery of going back into the bedroom and determined to keep watch on the fireworks while we slept to ease his mind. Apparently.
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| He's resting his head on a small ledge and is out cold. |
But are fireworks the be-all-end-all of New Year? No, indeed. It is apparently traditional to have chicken for the New Year's meal (I think?), so about a week prior to the great celebration we could hear roosters crowing both in the early morning and throughout the day. I think people kept them on their porch prior to mealtime. And a few must have been spared, the-president-pardoning-a-turkey-on-Thanksgiving style, because we can still hear them cock-a-doodle-doing every so often.
Also, the decorations are breathtaking. Red lanterns, Chinese dragons, rabbits, etc. We haven't really taken many pictures since getting here, so I guess you'll just have to imagine them. And you spend New Year's with your family, and a lot of people's families are out in the country, so the city was dead on Sunday and Monday, and relatively quite Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. There was no traffic, taxis were practically racing to get to you first, and the stores were quiet. Huge transformation.
I guess I can sum it up by saying that next year we'll be taking some vacation time elsewhere.
