Happy Chinese New Year 2012

I am able to block out the sound of fireworks, but Mimi is not. I want to sleep late, but the little white doggy insists that I get up.

It’s the morning of Chinese New Year and we have ushered in the Year of the Pekingese – at my place anyway.

Our morning routine ends and I decide to let Meems catch up on sleep while I ride my electric motorbike into town. I park in front of Starbucks, delighted to see the bike watcher has taken a day off. I get to keep my 8 cents.

Last year on Chinese New Year, this Starbucks had more customers. This year, it only has three at this hour of the morning. I sit at the high bench on the second floor, overlooking the busy tree-lined streets below as I sip my soy latte. My hands are so cold that I don’t even get a cardboard heat-protection sleeve on my paper cup. I want my hands to get warmed by the hot liquid inside.

Bus after bus stops below, letting off passengers who have come to the Taoist temple situated on this block. On Chinese New Year, people who claim to have no religious beliefs hedge their bets by lighting incense and praying for good fortune in the coming year. They just go through the motions, with no clear idea of whom they pray to. The temple may be Taoist, but it is seen as a conglomeration of Chinese traditional religion. If a Buddhist temple were closer and easier to get to, most of them would be there burning incense instead.

This temple has a clear advantage over the Buddhist temple west of town…this temple is located smack-dab in the middle of town, and all the department stores are open today. Smaller stores around town are closed down for days, but the downtown merchants wouldn’t dare miss their chance at income. And someone has to feed all these temple tourists, so the restaurants will rake in money today too.

People buy bundles of incense sticks for less than a dollar. They pay to get inside the temple, light the sticks in a trash-filled bonfire, shake the sticks towards the temple, then toss the used sticks back into the trash-filled bonfire. Parents teach their children how to do the ritual. I don’t get the sense that anyone really believes there is power in the sacrament; they are simply perpetrating their Chinese tradition.

A festive atmosphere fills the air as people eat cotton candy, buy trinket souvenirs, and buy balloons outside the temple courtyard. People have just come out for something to do. It’s a sunny day, and too much family togetherness for the holidays could be volatile in a country where forgiveness is not part of their psyche. It’s just as well they get out and about.

I’ve come down with a cold, so I grab a bite to eat and then return home to nap with my electric blanket. But apparently Mimi has slept the entire time I was gone to town. She doesn’t want us to spend the rest of the afternoon sleeping. After half an hour, she rumbles, paws me and forces me up again.

Yup, definitely the Year of the Pekingese.

P.S. To those of you for whom my sarcasm has made things unclear -- it is really the Year of the Dragon. There is no Year of the Pekingese on the official Chinese Lunar Horoscope, it only exists on the unofficial E and Mimi calendar. There is a real Chinese Year of the Dog though, it's just not this year.

Fire pit at the temple.

I saw a lot of people with blue teeth and lips. Hmmm, I wonder why?
Cotton candy, yum!

CNY Eve

A rooster crows. I live in the middle of a city of several million people, and I don’t expect to hear a rooster crowing. I figure he’s saying good morning to me for the first and last time. By tonight he’ll be someone’s dinner. It’s Chinese New Year’s Eve, and tonight’s the night for the biggest family gathering and meal of the year.

Last night’s heavy snow didn’t accumulate. It fell into puddles from the previous week’s rain and melted on impact. A few flurries fall delicately from the sky as Mimi and I take our morning walk.

I can’t remember the last time it was so quiet in the Middle Kingdom. It’s usually such a noisy kind of place.

But today it is Sunday, it’s extremely cold and windy, and most people have already arrived at their holiday destination prior to the New Year holiday on Monday. They are sleeping in, storing up their energy for a long noisy night to come.

I want to stay out longer, to enjoy the quiet. But it is too cold.

Mimi and I return upstairs. It has rained most of the past week, and I have cabin fever. I want to get out. I go out on my electric motorbike to a coffee shop three blocks away. It is so cold and windy that I almost change my mind and return home, but I continue on.

I park my bike on the sidewalk, and a little old lady comes to collect her bike-watching fee of 8 cents. When she realizes it is me, the person who gave her a calendar for a gift last month, she says there is no charge. But I know she needs the money, so I double the coins and give her extra for the holiday. She is thankful. I don’t know how she can bear the cold all day.

I go to the coffee shop and order a latte. I am the only customer. I curl up on a brown leather sofa and sip my latte while reading my second book by Marie Monsen on my Kindle. After about an hour, I return home.

During Mimi’s afternoon walk, I realize the wind has stopped! We return to my apartment where I switch out my sweet dog for my camera, and I head out by foot again. I am going to the village that I can see over the wall from where I live.

First I pass by a small Buddhist temple. They are adding on to it to make it bigger. Then I see a woman clean her mop in the canal ... a lady buys Pepsi for her big dinner tonight ... a mahjong parlor sits empty. Voices of laughter emanate from the village homes, and from the windows I see family reunions going on inside.

It’s only 5, but the sun is setting. Firecrackers are popping everywhere now.

I return to my place and get on my electric bike to see what it is like to ride on almost-deserted streets. I love it! If it wasn’t so cold I would go further. But I end up instead at a restaurant that serves Central Asian-style food. I go here often, and the waitresses all know me. I love the eclectic green and red chandeliers, the beaded fringe over the counter, the cleanliness and the warmth. I certainly love the food.

A young couple sits at one table, two men sit at another. We are the only three tables of customers on this New Year’s Eve. Almost everyone else is home for the holidays. Even this restaurant will be closed for the next four days.

I eat, then pack the rest up to take back to my place. It is dangerous to be out on the roads now. Young men are setting off fireworks in the bicycle lane of the road where I need to travel. I am going to go back to my place for the rest of the evening.

I get back and move my plants and baskets off the balcony. If perchance my upstairs neighbors have come home, they may set off firecrackers that send flaming bits of paper to my balcony. It happens every year. If not tonight, then I expect it another night.

It is about 8 pm now, and it is really noisy with fireworks and firecrackers. I eventually go to bed at 10, although I know I’ll be up again at midnight. Mimi can’t stand any of it. I pull covers and mattresses from the guest bed and put them in my bay window to absorb some of the noise before it gets to our ears. Last year we slept in the hallway to block the noise, but I really want to be warmed by my electric blanket on my own bed tonight.

At five minutes until midnight, I am awakened by the loudest onslaught yet of whistles and booms – the midnight fireworks are exploding. I get up and go to the living room to admire them from the huge windows. In general I think they are annoying, but they are not going away so I am trying to find a way to like them. In my new way of looking at things, they are beautiful.

After 20 minutes or so, I go back to bed, although the constant stream of fireworks will continue through the night and until the afternoon of the next day.

I don’t get much sleep, but the year of the dragon successfully arrives. The first of fifteen consecutive days of celebration has now begun.

I see this pathway from my apartment complex, but a wall separates it from me. But today I went to take a look.

A Buddhist temple is built in the middle of a block, not visible from any street.

Until yesterday, the weather was springlike, and flowers had begun to bloom on this tree.

A canal runs next to the Buddhist temple, and a village is built along the canal.

A bit like Venice, homes are built along the canal.

Doors are decorated for the Chinese New Year holiday. It says "fu" which translates to blessing or luck.

Some doors, like this metal one, have the "fu" turned upside down. Its owners hope
that luck will fall upon them in the coming year.

She has guests coming over for dinner, so she buys two large bottles of Pepsi at the village store.

Husband and wife watch TV at their village store. There is no big meal at their place tonight, but as one of the few shops open in town, they will make money from others who think of last minute things to buy for the family reunion meals.

The year of the dragon

Last year was the year of the rabbit. Poor little bunnies were purchased as playthings for kids at the new year. Some escaped, some probably died in captivity. Fortunately, there will be no such New Year-related animal cruelty going on this year, because you can't go down and buy a dragon. Except a toy one.

January 23, 2012 ushers in the Year of the Dragon.

The Eve before Chinese New Year's Eve

It's Saturday, and two days from now is Chinese New Year, and I'm here in the middle of it all to give you consistent cynical updates on all the holiday craziness!

Let's talk cleanliness. Everyone is doing "spring cleaning" this week, although the forecast is for snow and so the name is a bit off the mark. Chinese all clean their homes prior to the new year, and are forbidden by tradition to doing any cleaning on new year's day (they don't want to wash or sweep away their good fortune). China, unlike Japan, is not particularly known for its cleanliness. For some, it is the only time during the year that the home is thoroughly cleaned. I'm not one to judge. Every time I clean the house, Mimi sits by the front door to wait for whomever is coming over. 'Cause, according to her pea-sized yet accurate brain, I surely wouldn't be cleaning the house unless company was coming over.

Shopping is a huge big deal in the Middle Kingdom this week too. Case in point -- I went to the superstore day before yesterday and got rammed in the backside by innumerable grocery carts. It's kind of like they want to nudge you along, so as if you were some sort of bumper car, they just really and truly on purpose push their metal grocery cart into your backside! And, you know, most of the backsides over here are not well-padded, so getting one rammed by a metallic 4-wheeled vehicle hurts! If you turn around in annoyance and look the offender in the eye, they are appalled and embarrassed. They don't mean it as anything personal. They just want you to get out of their way so they can get out of the store so they can get home and clean house. And this is the way to do it. If this was America, people would be pulling out their cell phones and calling 911 to report bodily assault. But this isn't America, so we just deal with it the best we can. Sedatives.

(I'm pretending like the bumper car shopping experience only happens on CNY. But it happens almost every day of the week, year round, and I absolutely refuse to enter those stores on weekends when they are most crowded. I do not blame the people themselves for the crowding. It's not their fault that they live in the most populous country in the world. Everyone is just trying to survive as best they can.)

They look in my grocery cart to see what I am buying. Usually at that store, here's what they see:

• dog food
• chicken
• ground beef
• bacon

(I buy my other stuff at less crowded market areas.)

They go grocery shopping every couple of days, and certainly assume I do too, so they look at the six-week's supply or dog food/bacon/chicken/etc. in my basket and think I am going to eat it all in three days and be back for more. They are not in the habit of freezing meat. I am misunderstood. They must think I have a big dog and ten kids that weigh 300 lbs each. But there's not much I can do about the inaccurate conclusions drawn by looking in my basket. I'm sure I draw a few inaccurate conclusions looking at their lives too.

For Chinese New Year, here's what they are buying at the superstore:

• Paper door decorations
• boxed food items to give as gifts when they visit homes of friends and family during the holiday -- think along the lines of fruit cakes.
• Food - they'll make a meal bigger than your Thanksgiving meal, and some grocery stores will be closed for 3-15 days, so they have to stock up.

Frankly, I don't care too much about what they are buying. But many of them are exceedingly interested in what is in my grocery cart. Some don't even try to hide their curiosity, they just bend over until their heads are in my basket where they can more easily scan the contents. So far no one has rifled through the cart with their hands to see what's at the bottom, though I'm pretty sure it wouldn't phase me if they did.

I am relieved that the pressures of the Chinese New Year holiday don't fall upon me as a foreigner. Christmas just ended, and I am not able to survive two major holidays of mammoth proportions within one month.

I am, however, bracing for a few sleepless nights in the coming week. The fireworks have already begun. And E the spectator will be giving you live reports, so check back again soon!

Stepped out of the kingdom for a week...

Sorry for the hiatus, but I was in the land of the rising son for eight days. Yep, I was in Japan. I've been wanting to go there forever, but I knew it was outrageously expensive, so I was waiting for someone to send me there instead. My wish finally came true. I was sent there.

My dad lived in Misawa, Japan for a year back in the 50s and doesn't have fond memories of that cold country. Even though I too went in winter, I found the Japan of 2012 to be rather hot, especially in comparison to China. In Japan everything is heated. Over-heated. Even some toilet seats are heated. That's just over the top. Yet nice.

With Chinese New Year coming up in less than one week, I don't have time to delve into Japan in great detail right now. So I'll just hit upon some highlights.

• It is clean.
• Looks like most things were built 20-30 years ago (yet they are very clean).
• Bathrooms are so clean you could set your purse on the floor and probably not get germs on it. Enough about cleanliness.
• I didn't see much poverty. I saw some homeless men in the parks though.
• It is über-stylish in Japan. 
• In Tokyo, everyone wears black and grey, with textures like tweed and suede, as in business suits and such. It looks awesome. (I wore blue jeans and tennis shoes, and still was in great pain after walking through Tokyo for days on end. I would have liked to have been more stylish, but we have to be practical when we get to a certain age, right?)
• Highways are not landscaped as they are in China. For example, in Shanghai even the overpasses have rows of colorful flowers decorating the sides of them. Tokyo was more austere looking in terms of landscaping.
• Tokyo may be the largest city in the world, but it is not the most crowded. I found the lack of people alarming after being in the over-populated Middle Kingdom for so long.
• Outrageously expensive. A KFC chicken burger cost me US$6 in Tokyo. In China it is only something like $2 for the same thing.
• Excellent Mexican food in Tokyo at El Torito.
• Krispy Kreme is everywhere in Tokyo. The original donut costs $2 each.
• It cost me $6.50 for a tall soy latte at Starbucks in Japan. In China the same thing costs $4.44. In America it is probably way cheaper. 
• The toilets in Japan are all plugged in to electrical outlets (I guess that accounts for heating the seats). They have arms on the side of the toilet with lots of buttons on them, almost none of which are translated into English. One toilet had 23 different buttons to push. I was scared to push any of them, as I was afraid of sounding off an alarm. Then I noticed that one button was translated into English, the flush button. Okay, not another word about bathrooms.
• People in Japan are polite and don't push and shove on public transportation. 
• The level of English in Japan is pretty low compared to other countries like China.
• Japan has snow-capped volcanoes. I woke up one morning in Tokyo and saw Mt. Fuji from my hotel window. It wasn't there the day before. Well, I couldn't see it the day before anyway, due to clouds. I'm pretty sure it was there though.

Well, that's my recap. I was greeted back to the Middle Kingdom by a happy Pekingese who did flips and licked my nose. Life is good.

Grace

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” 

                                                                                                                      — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Reading

I'm reading a book by Marie Monsen, a Norwegian who lived in the Middle Kingdom for several decades in the early 1900s. Undeterred by the horrors of the Boxer Rebellion, she arrived in 1902. Her book has short, inspiring chapters that tell of the Lord's protection in specific instances. She was used by the Lord to spark the Shandong Revival as well. The "Heavenly Man" talks about her influence in the forward of his book by the same name.

Monsen's book, "A Present Help," is available in paperback and on Kindle through Amazon's online store.

Two thousand twelve