Holiday buzz

There's a buzz in the air as people travel to their hometowns for Chinese New Year, which falls on Saturday, January 28th this year. School is out for a month. The train and bus stations are packed above and beyond normal capacity.

All through town, you see people rolling their luggage. Everyone is on the move!

People are also stocking up on food and supplies, because even though most stores are only closed for three days, many businesses will be closed for two full weeks during the holidays. Even the ones that are open will be short of supplies like meat and produce, because their suppliers are on vacation. I'm stocking up on bottled water, toilet paper, light bulbs, and groceries. No need to stock up on coffee. Starbucks here is open 365 days a year.

People are also buying gifts, in the form of food items in gift boxes. The food may be cookies, cakes, fruit, nuts, wine, etc. Chinese people give the gifts to family members and to people that they visit during the holidays. The beautiful boxes of gift food are often re-gifted. These gift boxes are not cheap, and people need to buy quite a few. Homemade gifts are not considered appropriate. 

This year, fireworks have been banned in the city limits. No fireworks' stands line the roads as usual. I'm pretty excited that I won't have to bring in everything off of my balconies this year. (I have had flaming bits of paper land on my balcony before, so the risk of fire was real.) But I cannot imagine Chinese New Year without massive pyrotechnics. It seems like the mature thing to do, to ban fireworks. But I'm afraid it won't be quite the same.