Happy New Year to you all! Guo Nan Hao!
Cathy returned to her hometown to spend Spring Festival with her family and I caught a flu bug, so I stayed home. (Something about New Year here--I seem to recall being sick last year too.) As I’ve mentioned before, blowing stuff up is a big part of celebrating New Year here. The schedule for New Year’s Eve is to have a big dinner around 6 P.M., go outside and blow a few things up, then come back inside and watch the festivities on TV. (Kind of like our Dick Clark special back home.) At midnight, you go back outside and blow the rest of your stuff up. Well, there was no sleeping from about 7-8 tonight, so I went on my back porch and shot some video of the neighbors blowing their stuff up. When they were done, I went back to bed until they encouraged me to get up again at about 11:55. This time I went to the front side of our building and shot some video. I posted it on YouTube and here it is.
Here is another link in case the video on this page doesn't load correctly.
Note: This is NOT any kind of professional, city-sponsored fireworks display. This is just the neighbors going out in the street, courtyards, sidewalks, and blowing stuff up. And this is just ONE neighborhood in a small part of ONE city here. Imagine what it’s like all over the country. Plus, this is only the stuff that goes up in the air. On street-level, people are setting of coils containing thousands of firecrackers, roman candles, sparklers, bottle rockets and other things that you can’t see above the rooftops. I walked around during Round 1 this evening and it’s pretty cool. A lot of gunpowder in the air.
By the way, this is the Year of the Pig. The Chinese zodiac is divided into twelve, like the western one, and each one is given an animal. For example, 1956, the year I was born, was the Year of the Monkey, and every 12 years after that. (The latest Year of the Monkey was ’04.) It’s pretty interesting stuff, and here’s a link to a Wikipedia article if you’re interested.
Here's another one to give you the ins and outs of celebrating New Year.
So, to all my friends: Gongxi facai! Congratulations and be prosperous!
Cathy returned to her hometown to spend Spring Festival with her family and I caught a flu bug, so I stayed home. (Something about New Year here--I seem to recall being sick last year too.) As I’ve mentioned before, blowing stuff up is a big part of celebrating New Year here. The schedule for New Year’s Eve is to have a big dinner around 6 P.M., go outside and blow a few things up, then come back inside and watch the festivities on TV. (Kind of like our Dick Clark special back home.) At midnight, you go back outside and blow the rest of your stuff up. Well, there was no sleeping from about 7-8 tonight, so I went on my back porch and shot some video of the neighbors blowing their stuff up. When they were done, I went back to bed until they encouraged me to get up again at about 11:55. This time I went to the front side of our building and shot some video. I posted it on YouTube and here it is.
Here is another link in case the video on this page doesn't load correctly.
Note: This is NOT any kind of professional, city-sponsored fireworks display. This is just the neighbors going out in the street, courtyards, sidewalks, and blowing stuff up. And this is just ONE neighborhood in a small part of ONE city here. Imagine what it’s like all over the country. Plus, this is only the stuff that goes up in the air. On street-level, people are setting of coils containing thousands of firecrackers, roman candles, sparklers, bottle rockets and other things that you can’t see above the rooftops. I walked around during Round 1 this evening and it’s pretty cool. A lot of gunpowder in the air.
By the way, this is the Year of the Pig. The Chinese zodiac is divided into twelve, like the western one, and each one is given an animal. For example, 1956, the year I was born, was the Year of the Monkey, and every 12 years after that. (The latest Year of the Monkey was ’04.) It’s pretty interesting stuff, and here’s a link to a Wikipedia article if you’re interested.
Here's another one to give you the ins and outs of celebrating New Year.
So, to all my friends: Gongxi facai! Congratulations and be prosperous!
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