Pudding and Chopsticks

Got to love fireworks in the middle of an apartment compound. Makes for some interesting noise.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, uh, bring in the dragon?.. Or something.

The calm before the storm.

The storm

You can see in the distance, it’s like WW3. Think of it like every American could go buy mortar shells and light them off anywhere. Yeah, it’s that awesome.

Yes your seeing that correctly. Merely a few meters from the APARTMENT BUILDING they light off some mortar shells. Does it make me feel like a little kid again in the sticks blowing up things, YES.

I was getting it on both sides of my building so I had to race back and fourth. This was a cluster of three or four people lighting them off in the same apartment complex area. At MIDNIGHT..

So it’s New Years Eve here in China. Tomorrow is the first day of the new lunar year.

I’ll get straight to the point.

FIREWORKS.

I love fireworks, which is good because for two to three days straight, especially tonight, it sounds like WW3.

Yes folks, that in the middle of the apartment complex area. In the middle of all the buildings. Got to love it.

Enough danger to make a police officer cringe..

BOOM!

Here is how a store is opened.

With 5 minutes of fireworks, blackcats and mortar shells. Doesn’t the US seem boring now?

Today must be some special day or something. The fireworks have been going off since 6 or 7 am. 3 hours straight. I couldn’t go back to bed. I’m not complaining it’s just really, why do we need to fire these bad boys off at 6 am people. I really would like to know. Is it something that I got to do too? Because I’m all for lighting some gunpowder off.

Chinese New Year means exploding things. YES!. How did I ever miss this. Anyway I was about to buy the guys entire stock and show them how to do fireworks American country style, but, I thought that I would probably burn something down. Seems to me something always burned at my house on Fourth of July. I don’t want to have a bunch of angry Chinese old women come after me. So I settled for some mellower items.

8,000 black cats or something. Each 1000 is 1.80USD.

Here’s my haul. I paid about 8 USD for this lot. No I.D. required. In fact I could buy as many motar shells as I wanted, but I didn’t. Maybe next year.

So I have only been privy to attending one Chinese wedding, and even that wasn’t really anything too awesome. I barely knew the Bride and Groom and didn’t stay long. However I have seen my fair share of parades and festivities from the outside. From what I can gather it’s all a contest of how much of my wealth can I show the world. Case in point.

That’s right folks. These are all Mercedes Benz for, what I can only guess is, shuffling wedding people from one place to another. Yep. All rented. Oh, I forgot the mention the Bentley, yes, a Bentley at the front of the line. All complete with drivers.

And billboards with the couple’s photo on them. Really? Yes really.

Cute!

Don’t forget the fireworks. These bad boys are cheap and everywhere. In fact I could, right now, 8pm, for buy a box of these motar shells and let them rip anywhere I please. No stupid laws to get in the way of my childhood dreams.

Smack dab in front of the hotel where I assume there are eating and trying to make a baby tonight.

I got a friend that I hope this year will have a big wedding because I really, really want to be in charge of the pyrotechnics.

As far as the showing of wealth goes. This wedding probably cost more then a wedding in the States. And I suppose you argue that weddings in the States are kind of the same thing. At least in China you get a 红包 “red envelope.” Translation: MONEY!

Yep, I’ve been here for over a year and haven’t seen a proper explosion. Sad really. But Friday I did. The city I live in celebrated 2500yrs. You read that right. 2500 years of kicking out the Chinese vibes. Ha you thought North America was all big and bad for 518yrs.

Anyway here are the photos to prove to all you skeptics that yes I did see fireworks.

Yesterday was the 60th year of the PRC. I’m sure the western news has been all over it. Every channel here of course has. Now, it’s weird to be in a different country when they celebrate things. Somethings are not something we celebrate in America, like the Fall Festival or 60 years of communism. To be here and see the flags, and everyone having the day off work reminds me of the 4th of July. You realize that people all over the world are also proud of their countries just as us Americans are of our own. When you are in the states and are having a happy fourth you never really think about what other countries are doing. I think that we are so caught up in our own thing to see what’s going on past our happy little fence in our yard. You can’t be too mindful of matters outside of home but at least an aknowledgement that the USA is not the only country in the world that is awesome.

So yeah, I took some photos of what I have seen today and of the fireworks show on tv last night. It was awesome. Mind blowing. You thought the Olympics were good, well, did the Olympics have nuclear weapons paraded down the street, that’s right no. So read on.

Just think what China has right now. Lots of things right. Well think 60 yrs ago, they didn’t have any of it. A car, what the hell was that. Nothing. In 60 yrs to build up from that to what China is now, impressive. We went into space in the 60s, maybe 50s. China, hell, I don’t think they had rockets. Actually they probably did, bottle rockets, awesome. Now they plan to go to the moon and have had men and space and space walked. So during this show of their military arms 90% had never been seen before. They marched perfectly. I can’t stress this enough. EVERYTHING WAS IN PERFECT TIME AND DISTANCE. It was mind blowing to watch. Man. If you saw it on tv or a clip or whatever you might of noticed Chinese characters in the massive square. Nope not signs but 80,000 kids hanging out there with colored hats. Dang, that’s crazy. Then 30,000 doves were released later in the parade. That’s insane. No one was allowed to be outside in Beijing. Can’t be having people rain on our parade. Speaking of that they were ready to change the weather if it looked like it was going to rain. Crazy Chinese. Only 30,000 people could watch in person the parade. All hand selected of course. Rest of us had to watch it on tv. But as with most everything it was better anyway. Why doesn’t the US parade military weapons down the road. That would be pretty cool. Every Chinese vehicle had white walls. Actually it was kind of rediculus. Everything had a new coat of paint. Prestine. The building that the chairman was watching from was built in 1420. The Ming Dynasty. Really I think that we have some statues that are um. a couple hundred years old in America. 100,000 people marched in the civilian parade, and there were 80,000 or more kids in the end that stormed the road to wave to the leaders. There were squares of people 36 in total with 5,000 kids in the last one holding 6 balloons each. For those counting that’s 30,000 balloons that were released at the end. Awesome. There were 60 floats, that were comprised of different themes and one for each province.

I got to say it was pretty darn impressive. No I’m not turning communist. But just think of the people who are still alive that saw Mao proclaim in 1949 that we are The People’s Republic of China, and get to see now what it has turned into. Having nothing to having almost everything.

Some photos of the day and fireworks.

For din din we had some spicy fish stuff and shrimp. Oh man it was good, however I am, how you say, paying the piper today. Oh well. I took a photo of the street because well, if you every try to cross this street on a non holiday, you’ll die. Ok, ok not die but you might think you will. On national day, nothing, nada, not one car. However this changed later in the day. A lovely photo of myself to prove that yes I am actually in China. There have been conflicting reports that maybe I was so good at Photoshop that I could of staged all the photos in Michigan. Nope, really here.. Ha ha. Happy face fireworks. How much better can you get.. dang. A overhead shot of the celebration. Yeah that’s all people. Mostly. And yes you could totally fit my hometown inside there. All 1500 of us. That building is mad old. Built in the 15th century, are you kidding me. Crazy. I was there last year, also very crazy…

So that’s about it. China knows how to throw a bash. Now I’m waiting for the China new year. That should be a good one….