Happy New Year from Beijing! Wow... what an amazing experience. First of all, Chinese New Year is celebrated on a MUCH larger scale than I ever imagined. Yesterday afternoon the streets of Beijing seemed almost deserted, as everyone was home with their families. The military museum I had originally intended to go see was closed, and as the guard explained, would be closed for another two days, reopening "on Wednesday or Thursday." There is a gap in time here, but long story short, it was closed, so there was nothing left to do but go shopping. I headed over to Silk Street, in the eastern part of the city, and bought all kinds of pillow covers, art, chopsticks, bracelets, earrings - boy - it's fun to spend money and bargain! (and the most expensive thing I bought was around $13.00) So... the next wave of gifts should be arriving soon. I am not bribing you all to stay friends with me... it's just fun to buy stuff!
After I left Silk Street, I headed over to a restaurant called "Grandma's Kitchen" with my friend Sandy. It's a restaurant that specializes in serving only Western food for homesick expats, so we filled up on chicken caesar salad, buffalo wings, fettucine alfredo, and potato skins with cheese and bacon... it was as good as it was unhealthy. We decided to walk back to the hotel!
My hotel room is on the fifth floor, overlooking the Forbidden City and Tiananmen - I can see the top of Mao's tomb from my window, and can see across the entire western half of the city as well (on a clear day). Watching the fireworks go off was amazing - actually one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It was completely random, disorganized, and beautiful. Imagine a four hour fireworks show, not in one centralized location, but spread out across the horizon - totally unplanned, dependent only on when the guy who lives in the courtyard house across the street decides to get out of his chair and light the firework stuck in a tube in his driveway with the end of his cigarette. Lest you think I am making this up, I am not. Fireworks were banned in Beijing for many years, mostly I think because of the injuries lighting them produced - and after seeing the guy with the cigarette, I can see how those injuries could easily happen. I'm actually surprised nothing large caught on fire. The NOISE after midnight was indescribable. I called my parents on my cell phone and stuck it out the window so they could hear - I had to yell into the phone to talk to them, it was that loud. Man... imagine every courtyard of every building - and the street corners - and the sidewalks - and some of the streets themselves - all sending up fireworks at random times starting after sundown and ending an hour after midnight - all in a city of 17 million people - and you have some idea of what I saw last night.
My friend and I ventured out after midnight to see what was going on out on the streets - we imagined there might be people strolling around on the streets, going to bars, eating random street food - like New Year's in the US. What we found though, were deserted streets - completely deserted - the only activity being people sweeping up the glass from a shop window which they had accidentally blasted out by setting off a firework directly in front of it. The only lights we saw were the blue lights of police cars, and as we looked down one normally busy street, the only people we saw were busily engaged in setting off fireworks in the middle of the street. New Years in China is a time to stay at home with family, and also, last but not least, watch the New Years television extravaganza on your choice of CCTV1, 2, 3, or 4. CCTV1 seemed to be the best produced - included some amazing acrobatic shows, some patriotic montages (a homage to the Communist Party leadership, as well as dancing men in tight blue pants holding silver airplanes, while a woman sang "I Love The Blue Skies Over China" - there were also Tibetans performing a native dance while the new trans-Tibetan train engines roared past on a television screen in the background. As my dad says, "Why just do it when you can overdo it?" ...that seemed to be the motto for the night. The award for most heartfelt performance probably had to go to the bunch of rural schoolchildren who got up on stage and recited their New Years wishes for the country - they said that their desks were old but that their grades were still good, that it was their mothers who swept the streets, and their fathers who built the tall buildings, but that they were all Chinese. Boy - there wasn't a dry eye in the house by the time they finished, and even one of the TV hosts had tears in her eyes. It was all very carefully scripted, but still - you really can learn a lot about China by watching things like that.
Right now I am about to head off and check out some New Years markets around the city - today is the day when people go to the Daoist temples around Beijing to pray for luck and happiness in the coming year. I was told yesterday by a salesman at Silk Street that there is a gate outside one temple with a monkey on it, and if there is something wrong with your health, the monkey can help you cure it. For instance, if you have stomach pains, you can go touch the monkey's stomach, and then touch your own, and your stomach pains will be cured. When I expressed interest in going to see the monkey, he warned me that I would never make it through the throngs of people gathering around the monkey - "摩不到" were his exact words, for those of you who speak Chinese. If I do manage to see the monkey though, I will definitely let you know how it was! ok - off to get food now. 祝你们新年快乐！
