Chinese New Year: Louder! Louder!
Thursday, February 7th, 2008Happy Chinese New Year! For many Chinese, it is now officially 2008.
The usual round of Chinese merry-making is well on its way, an endless cycle of spending money to buy presents, spending money to buy new clothes, traveling somewhere (hah, that was funny), family and friend meet-n-greets, dining, drinking, smoking, mah-jong (ma jiang), card-playing, red-pocket (hong bao) giving and receiving, well-wishing, paying your respects, toasting your elders and each other, and lighting the motherfucking fire-crackers, baby!
Unlike the United States where it often legal to own a firearm but not play with firecrackers or fireworks, the Chinese blast that shit nonstop for something like 2-3 days straight. It is not just loud, it is pervasive…so much so that the Chinese even gleefully wonder aloud if the Koreans to the north and those despicable Japanese can hear all of China celebrating in glorious unison painting the streets red (with spent firecracker shells, not blood, that is). Crack-crack-crack through the night (which is qualitatively different from bang-bang-bang *ahem*) and even through the days, it isn’t just noise, but is also plenty of beautiful fire flowers (yan hua) amongst the residential buildings throughout the city. No silly fire-safety codes here, there’s no problem with a nice big firework exploding right next to your window to shower the facade of your tower with bright gleeming burning particles of celebration.
To say Chinese New Year is festive would be an understatement.
