Quiet holiday

I look forward to Chinese New Year. I have my own traditions, many of which involve photography, eating out, soaking in the culture, and chatting with minority groups (for instance, Tibetans or Muslims) that mill around town because they don't celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

But this year, I missed the holiday. The flu bug bit hard. Instead of running around town, I stayed indoors with the heaters running full blast and a fuzzy doggy warming my feet while I laid on the sofa. I finally had to go out a few times: to get medicine, to buy some veggies when I could find a market that finally re-opened, and to pay my phone bill. The roads seemed deserted. I'd never seen the city like this before. With the ban on fireworks in the city limits, it was eerily quiet. No one is scaring off evil spirits as they re-open their shops after the holidays. No one is inviting the "money god" to bring him riches by setting off the loudest pyrotechnics. I really don't know what everyone did this year. I missed it completely.

Hopefully I'll get another chance to celebrate next year.

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.