An American during Chinese New Years. Simply AWESOME!!!!

Welcome to The Spring Festival!!!

  This week's blog is dedicated to our Chinese friends that helped us enjoy the Spring Festival and ring in the Chinese New Year.  So, thank you to Michael, David, Ken and Sam.  They did their best to help give us an authentic experience.

  As I bring the blog to you today, I am intoxicated with the sights and smells that greet me on the first day of the Chinese New Year.  

While taking a deep breath of the scent of gunpowder and incense mixed with the exotic Lily smell at our front door,  I am reminded of the line that Robert Duval speaks in Apocalypes Now.  "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".  But other than napalm, I am smelling life.  It is a big and bold life filled with the colors and sounds of The Spring Festival and Chinese New Year. 

They plant them everywhere.

 Despite the stark reality of that scene in the movie, the neighborhood is anything but stark.  All of the flowers create a living rainbow in which the crimson papers from the previous nights fireworks fluttering in the soft breeze are like butterflies searching for sweet nectar.  Chinese New Year is a magical time of doing away with evil spirits or old stuff from the previous year and getting together with family and friends to wish each other much prosperity in the new one.  There are so many flowers of every type, as well as the blooms of fireworks.  It truly is an amazing time to have a fresh start.  

SCHOOL:  Nothing to report.  No work until the 18th.

The dichotomy that is China.

ADVENTURES:  As the week began, we settled back into our home after returning from Thailand.  I played golf one morning and we started getting back into a routine.  While we were gone, the village that we live near began preparing for the Spring Festival/New Year.  Everything was clean and fresh.  Lanterns were hung everywhere and the streets were lined with flowers. Most businesses had flowers and tangerine/mandarin trees standing guard at their entrances.  The mandarin/tangerine trees are covered with fruit.  The golden fruit represents prosperity in the new year.

Flowers ready to be cut for the table decorations.

  Our friend Ken told us the meaning behind the golden trees.  After telling us the story about the trees, Claire politely asked Ken what happens when you eat the fruit off the trees.  She assumed that you share your prosperity with your neighbors and friends.  Ken said the fruit was not for eating, just for decoration.  Claire then asked him, "If you eat the fruit, wouldn't you be golden on the inside as we'll?".  Ken was polite and shrugged his shoulders and with a smile on his face said "Maybe so, I hadn't thought of it that way before."  It sounded like pretty good twelve year old wisdom to me as well.

  So with all the decorating going on, we got into the swing of things as well.  Taylor and Cecelia bought some flowers and decorated our main entrance.  It was still a little sparse so we all went into the village and bartered for more.

Flowers of every color are available.

  On Wednesday, Paul returned from his visit back home to the US.  The first thing he and I did when he returned was, you guessed it, go on a scooter ride to get dinner.  To give you an idea of how much Paul loves his scooter, he traveled for 30 hours and the first thing he wanted to do when he returned other than hugging and loving on his nieces was scooter ride. 

  The next day we went for a ride out into the village and bought more decorations and fireworks.  That's right folks, we bought real fireworks.  Not the mamby pamby kind that we buy in the US during the Fourth of July.  I am talking about the blow off your hand if you are not careful kind.  We initially thought that they were like giant sparklers that popped, but we were to be pleasantly surprised later in the week.

Flower shopping on the scooter.

  On Saturday, which was Chinese New Year's Eve, we were invited to share lunch with our friend Michael and his extended family.  He picked us up at 11:30 and we headed to his mother's home nearby.  When we arrived we met Michael's brother, his mother, niece and sister in law

  The house that Michael's mom lives in is amazing.  It is a combination of their old house and the new house.  The original house was about 400 square feet and consisted of five rooms.  At one point while Michael was growing up in the house there were four families living in the house.  With children and parents there was a total of around 18 people living together all at one time.  

The streets are all decorated like this!

The original home was around 200 years old and had been handed down from family to family.  We actually think it was probably older than that, since they showed us a tile on a building that had a painting of the village and they said it was at least 500 years old.  We also walked over a small bridge in the village that was 300 years old.  It is really difficult to grasp how old things are in modern times, when our country is not as old as the walking bridge.  It truly is amazing how far we have come in America  in such a short period of time.

  At lunch we had a traditional hot pot meal where there was a main pot on a burner that was filled with some broth, chicken parts, beef and mushrooms.  The pot was just short of boiling when we were called to the table.  All of the other ingredients were in dishes around the table.  Everything was fresh and ready to cook while we sat down.  The ingredients that were waiting to be cooked were fresh minced fish, pork dumplings, pig intestines, squid, chicken parts and a huge plate of fresh vegetables.  When you eat, all the things that are on the table go into the pot one at a time.  The ingredients cook and then they are dished out into small bowls that each person has placed in front of them.  Any bones from the food are placed on the table directly.  So as the family eats, everyone shares whatever is in the pot.  The things that our family liked the most were the mushrooms, dumplings and fish balls.  I really enjoyed the squid, which the rest of my family decided to send my way after they tasted it.  We all agreed that the pig intestine was difficult to eat, too chewy and no flavor. 

  While we ate, Michael's mom and brother kept toasting the New Year and us.  We felt very honored to be invited to such a family affair.  After leaving from lunch, we left for the flower market and purchased a nice lily for the front entrance.  Next, we went and met Michael's aunt.  We then returned home.  It was an outstanding afternoon.

  Apparently in China, the people are almost fanatical about getting home for the Spring Festival/Chinese New Year.  On New Year's Eve it is important to be home for lunch and then the family dinner in the evening. 

  To put this holiday into perspective for you, imagine combining, Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July together.  To top it all off, you need to be with family members during the holiday or it is bad luck for the family for an entire year.  Man, in the US I don't think we could handle that kind of pressure.  Can you imagine some college kid saying that they are going to another friend's house for Thanksgiving.  He would be cursing his family for the the year, OUCH!!!!!

  After resting for a bit, we headed out to see a fireworks show that my friend Ken told us about.  Of course living in China, the home of firework invention we were looking forward to the show, but it turned out to be unexpectedly awesome.

  Before the fireworks show we had a nice quiet meal at one of the few restaurants we could find that was still open.  We then went and got coffee and headed out to wait in anticipation for the show.  To our great surprise it wasn't really crowded and we got a seat on the edge of the lake where the fireworks were to be centered.  Unbeknownst to us we ended up sitting directly across from the fireworks barge.  It was the closest that I have ever been to the launch sight of a fireworks show.  After what we experienced, fireworks will never be the same.  So let me try to describe what we experienced.

Amazing to be so close!!

  

The barge for the fireworks was about 50 yards away from where we sat.  The show began when a lady MC come out and wished us all a Happy New Year in Chinese.  As soon as she said Happy New Year the barge jumped to life.  Rockets began spewing skyward in a brilliant barrage of red, green, gold and silver.  The explosions were like giant mushrooms in the sky.  The lady then began to tell a story and the fireworks were choreographed to go along with her story.  The next thing that happened was the barge began to spread the fireworks across the sky from left to right and then back again.  The sight was so dazzling that it was as the sun had risen again.  I was shooting pictures with my camera and didn't need a flash because it was so bright.  Next was the shower of small fireworks that blanketed the sky like fireflies.  The rest of the show created emotions in me that I didn't think I could feel about exploding gun powder.  

  It was one of those beautiful opportunities to be thankful for the blessings of the experience.  My heart was pounding in my chest along with the beat of each concussion from the explosives and yet it was so beautiful that I got teary eyed with thanks.  I said a prayer of thanks right there on the edge of that lake.  I was not only thankful for the fireworks show, but also looking at my children watching in awe and my beautiful wife with her arms around them made me appreciate the moment that much more.

  The rest of the show had fireworks that I had never seen before.  There were even fireworks that represented a dragon breathing fire.  These were spewed out sideways onto the lake and continued to burn on the water.  It looked like a crazy techni-colored version of Monet's famous water lillies painting.

Simply Beautiful

  I have included a movie to try and help with my description.  If you have the capability to do so, watched the video with your computer plugged into some really big speakers and turn the bass and volume all the way up.  This will give you an idea of the feeling of the show as well as the visual orchestra that went on with us sitting near the barge.

  We then rode our scooters back to the house and broke out the fireworks we had purchased earlier.  We had big sparklers the size of Taylor.  We also had those little white poppers that you throw at people's feet to make them dance.  Finally, we purchased two boxes of something that had a few sticking out the side and one pack of the fireworks that blowup in a row.  

The Smoking Gun

You know the little ones that go pop, pop, pop for a long time.  A better example may be small versions of M80's all lashed together with a fuse.  We used to be able to buy them when we bought bottle rockets in Mexico years ago.  Oh, I forgot to mention that we bought a traditional row of fireworks that are supposed to scare away the old bad spirits from the previous year.  I am not sure we did that one right, because when we lit it, it kind of all blew up at once.  We saw many of these and they are supposed to go for quite a while, before exploding into a huge finale.  Well, we figure that we will have a great year because we blew all of our demons up at once like Americans.  

  Anyway when we took our boxes of fireworks out at a safe spot we lit the fuse on the side and ran like hell to get away from it.  We didn't know what it was going to do, but were pleasantly surprised to find out that these boxes are a fireworks show in a box.  When I mean a fireworks show in a box, I mean the kind in which rockets fly into the air and explode into huge plumes of colored sparks, like the ones you seen at an organised show in America.  We should have known what to expect, because the warning on the side of the box said to be aware of the flying fireballs.  Be aware right!!!  Not only did the boxes shoot flying fireballs into the air, but they were timed with fuses as well.  It was amazing, the best 20 bucks we ever spent on fireworks. 

  After finishing our little show, we went home to sleep.  Oh, but hold on. This is Chinese New Year in China!!!  It was around 10:30 when some of us attempted to go to bed.  Paul wanted to go out and moto around, so he went exploring.  As Cecelia and I lay in bed reading, we kept hearing fireworks going off in the neighborhood.  I decided to get up because I couldn't sleep and went to find Paul.  I made it to the end of our street just in time to see a fireworks show begin out by the river.  I thought maybe the resort was firing off explosives.  I was wrong.  There were two guys out on the street with a case of the fireworks that we had purchased.  They were firing off the boxes one after another.  It was crazy, cars were driving by without a care in the world.  Car alarms were sounding all over the place and the smoke was so thick that I had to turn my light off on my moto in order to see.  These guys kept at it for about half an hour.  At one point I thought it was so comical that I was laughing like a crazed asylum patient.  It was an amazing celebration.  Along with this impromptu show, there were people setting off evil spirit fireworks in front of their homes and businesses.

  After setting off the evil spirit fireworks people would then light incense to burn for the new year.  Can you imagine how awesome it would be if the priests threw a string of fireworks down the aisle at church before they walked down with the incense, it would be AWESOME!!!!  I don't think the older folks would like it very much, but the kids would get a heck of a kick out of it.   

  I couldn't find Paul so I went back to the house at about 11:40. I went back to wake Cecelia and the girls, so that they could experience the crazed neighborhood.  The girls were too tired and didn't want to get up, so  Cecelia and I went for a short moto ride on the streets of our neighborhood.  I thought I had seen the best of the show in the neighborhood until it struck midnight.  The sound and racket was so loud that we literally thought we were in a war zone, without the damaged buildings and the destruction.  All around the neighborhood, people were lighting off evil spirit fireworks, launching boxes of fireworks into the sky, and running with sparklers down the road.  The sky was lit up in the distance with flashes and you could feel the concussion in the air from the larger fireworks.  The smell of gunpowder was pungent and strong.  It was very much like some of the war movies I have seen, like Saving Private Ryan.  I was happy at one point, because Cecelia began laughing like a crazed asylum patient as well at one point.  It was a very touching moment to share with her that I had done the same earlier.  

  We finally met up with Paul after our scooters had run out of juice.  We shared our experiences and finally went off to bed.  Cecelia and I finally went to sleep at 2:30 am, but the show went on all night and into the next day.  

 I think this is enough for now.  I am exhausted just thinking about it again.  It was so much to take in, that it is going to take some time to process the whole thing.  Later this week, I will share what we did during the week