Spring Festival II

This is out of order, but I’ve long since given up trying to stay organized. ;)

Spring Festival isn’t confined to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The sixth day of the new year is the last day of one phase of the celebrating; almost everyone is off work for those six days but most people go back after that. There’s also the Lantern Festival, which happens on the fifteenth. Not the fifteenth of February, but the fifteenth of the new year, which is the time of the full moon.

There have been fireworks going off here since I came. For the first few days there were many street vendors selling holiday souvenirs and decorations and a dazzling variety of fireworks. We bought some and took them to Yanfeng’s family’s celebration, where they became part of a much larger supply.

On that first weekend, there was noise from firecrackers around the clock. It intensified on the Saturday (New Year’s Eve) and became constant and ubiquitous by Saturday evening. All over the city, boys and men (yes, I saw lots of girls and women spectating but I never saw one light a fuse) were out in the streets lighting stuff that would be illegal at home. From where we stood outside the alley to Yanfeng’s parents’ house, we could see fireworks all over the city that were at least as elaborate as the ones in Winthrop, Maine, on the Fourth of July. All these were being set off by private citizens.

This Sunday, for the Lantern Festival, the city government puts on its own (reportedly amazing) fireworks display at Century Park downtown. Amongst us foreigners (Jamie, Marien, me) there isn’t a lot of enthusiasm for going into the crowd that will be there, with -- still and again -- lots of boys setting off firecrackers all over the place. We haven’t decided what to do yet, if anything. It seems like a shame to miss the occasion, but besides the issue of crowds+fireworks, we would probably have to walk there and back and I don’t think my knees are up to it. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, as in so many other areas, there is a much more laissez faire attitude toward activities that would give a lot of Americans heart palptations from the safety point of view. When Jamie and I were walking to the pagoda the other day we passed a group of little boys, maybe 5-7 years old. Most of the boys were covering their ears with their hands while another little boy stuck a firecracker into a crack in a brick wall, lit it with a cigarette lighter, moved all of a foot or so away himself, covered his ears, and waited for the bang.

Nobody got hurt. (This time, anyhow.)

Meanwhile, at the end of the same street, I saw a woman riding a motorbike with a little kid on the back. The little kid was holding onto an even smaller kid. No one had a helmet, to say the least.