Xin Nian Kuai Le- Happy New Year!!

Welcome one and all to the year of the Rat (some places they call it the year of the mouse- I guess it might depend how you feel about various rodents!!). I'm a little tardy to post this, in part because we had company at the apartment (it seemed rude to sit in the back room and type away at the blog while she was here.) and because I wanted to make sure that I had it all set up in my head.
photo taken by JCS
We have a number of decorations up at the apartment. C's teacher provided us with a wall decoration that is the Chinese character for happiness, that we needed to hang upside down, in order for happiness to flow into the house, and a couple of other red and gold wall decorations. We also obtained two very festive wall hangings at the Honeywell dinner we attended a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure when to take these down; my family tradition includes removing holiday decorations around the feast of Kings in early January and I wonder if there is a corresponding date.

There are many other traditions that are associated with the new year. Just prior to its arrival, people clean their homes from top to bottom and prepare food for the upcoming meals with families and friends. On the first day of the new year, there is no cleaning. Sweeping your house might result in sweeping out the good luck with the dirt. Washing your hair for the first three days is also a sign that you might wash away wealth. Although this may seem a little strange, fundamentally we can understand the washing and sweeping away of things as being bad- the real understanding of these activities however, often has to do with the Chinese characters, or how the words sound. The Chinese word for hair is a homonym for wealth. Buying new trousers at New Year's is important because the Chinese word for trousers (fu) is a homonym for wealth. Many people wear red because it symbolizes luck, and don't wear black or white as they are associated with mourning. There are tons of these traditions, and we are only beginning to learn them. We might be pros by next year!! Thankfully our friends are happy to tell us about them, and there are expat english free papers around town, that have some explanatory notes.

By far the most impressive thing about this new year's celebration has been the fireworks. We had noticed how many different varieties of fireworks that were available on the street corners as well as in the teeniest shops. So it shouldn't have been a surprise that there would be lots that were set off. On new year's eve, they started at about 10:30 or so and continued sporadically. We went to bed aroun 11:00 and were awakened after midnight with the up close and constant booming noise of the fireworks. We stepped out on our deck and peered around our neighborhood. Everywhere you looked, both near and far, someone was launching some sort of fireworks- small snapping ones, and really huge ones that you see at special events like July 1st in Canada or the July 4th in the U.S. It was amazing! You could smell the sulfur in the air and the whole skyline was lit up. This went on for hours. We took a video with my camera, but I have not managed to download it for you. No matter since there are a number of them on YouTube. So I post for you here, a pretty good one that even has music set to it. It will give you an idea of what it was like. These guys celebrate like crazy. We even had a repeat of the whole thing on Sunday night- it was longer and louder than new year's eve- it that's possible!! I hope that you enjoy- I did!! Go to YouTube.com and enter in shanghai and firewords- there are many others for your viewing.



The Spring Festival goes on until the 21st of this month- I think that it finishes with the Lantern Festival on that date. That might be a quieter event!