Xin Nian Kuai Le!

It's the Year of the Tiger (time to celebrate ... more on that later)

Saturday was the start of Lunar New Year celebrations in China, and pretty much any other country (or group of people) celebrating the Lunar calendar. It is the biggest holiday of the year, a full week off of work for many people, and causes one of the largest migrations of people on earth. It's our second one, and we're definitely enjoying it more than last year.

The full celebration lasts for 14 days, but New Year's Eve is the biggest. The stores have been selling decorations and gifts for months, as everyone prepares to visit their family. Typically, the eldest person in the family hosts a huge dinner, in which elaborate and delicious dishes are served, especially fish! Married couples and elders give red envelopes with money inside (hong bao, or "red bag") to children and singles, while younger family members will return home with gifts and money for their parents and elders.

There was a great deal of discussion in the news about what was going to happen this year, since New Year's Day fell on Valentine's Day. Papers featured articles and editorials about how couples were going to be so conflicted about whether to spend the day with family or with their beloved, especially since the one-child policy has already made it difficult for couples to decide which family they will spend the holiday with (there are no brothers or sisters with whom to share the visiting/gift giving tasks). Florists and restaurants were pretty stressed that they would lose a major chunk of their yearly revenue by missing out on Valentine's Day.

And then there are the fireworks. We are totally and completely spoiled on fireworks. For the rest of our lives, nothing will seem impressive, after having our building shake and seeing the sky lit up for 8 hours straight. We have heard that some families will spend as much as one month's salary on celebrating Chinese New Year -- it is their Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's, and birthday all rolled into one. The fireworks typically start the morning of New Year's Eve, and then get more and more frequent during the day. After dinner is when they really get going, and then it's non-stop until 2 am or so. We saw boxes of fireworks selling for 600 RMB (a little under $100), and then we saw people wheeling huge shopping carts full of those boxes out to the spot they had claimed for the big show.

Here are some pictures of what we got to see IN OUR BACKYARD just after dinner -- consider that this is just one family's worth, in one compound, in a city of 24 million people.





And here's a quick video of what it looked and sounded like at midnight. The sound doesn't really capture it -- but that low noise you hear in the background that kinda sounds like a noisy air conditioner or a nearby freeway? That is the sound of millions of tiny firecrackers going off all at once.

New Year's Fireworks from Ruth Connell on Vimeo.