Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Chinese New Year (CNY) Shanghai 2006
Well, hopefully, the suspense has now been built up to an unsustainable level and you're screaming for the real CNY-Shanghai videos. Well, here they are, with commentary. I know, what more could you ask for??
This year Chinese New Year started this year on January 28 and went to February 12 or so. For the following two weeks, China is essentially on holiday. Kind like Christmas, except for two weeks. This is also the time of the largest movement of people of the world, as everyone picks up from the cities and heads home for family dinners and celebrations, and now an increasing number of people also coming to the cities to visit relatives.
Although I can't confirm these numbers right now, but if I remember correctly, Shanghai Daily reported that net, a million people left Shanghai for the holidays. Ok, big deal, I know. But that is net of 11 million people leaving and 10 million people arriving for the holiday over the two weeks. As a foreigner here, some of the Chinese are suprised to hear that we didn't have anything planned, kind of like having a friend in the States with no plans for Thanksgiving. But, all the foreigners at school here were warned by both Chinese and foreigners that this is the worst time to do traveling in China. Hordes of people camped out at train stations across the country waiting days for their trains (snow in the North apparently doesn't help train arrival times).
Anyway, I was also told the "real" CNY celebrations don't happen in the cities, so perhaps next year I will brave the crowds.
Some more background, the CNY comes about because of the traditional Lunar calendar not the Western calendar. So every year it changes and is around the end of January to February. It is also called, strangely enough, the Spring Festival. The "red envelopes" are used during this holiday and parents give them to their kids and they have money inside. The line the kids say translates to something like, "Happy new year (gong xi fa cai), give me a red envelope!"
So well, I'm rambling on now, and you've already probably skipped down to the videos below anyway. So let me tell you about what I did for this holiday.
On the Saturday night, the remaining people at school, perhaps 20 of us, all international students, went to Paulaner, a German restaurant right on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River and right across from the famous Bund. After a few locally brewed pints and a fantastic roast pork knuckle (is 100x better than it sounds!), the place started livening up and even the Germans started to get a bit roudy. Before I get into the topic of Germans, let me take a step back.
Fireworks. In the run up to the holiday, you could literally buy fireworks anywhere. This was evident in that every night you heard fireworks going off, and I don't mean little black cat fireworks, I'm talking full on 100-200 foot high explosions. Strangely, it seemed the poorer the area, the more fireworks were going off. This, in itself, was amazing, having a light show every night of the week for the two weeks *before* the holiday. Then I discovered the Carrefour fireworks stand. No, I didn't mistype. This was no ordinary fireworks stand. They sold tons of stuff, from cheap $1 up to $100 boxes.
Fast forward a bit to the Saturday. The fireworks started at about 6am or so. For the rest of the day, the bangs of gunpowder were inescapable. Again, I was amazed. Little did I know what was in store later that night.
On the way to Paulaner (sorry for the lack of continuity, this is why I am not a professional writer), there are tons of these apartment tower complexes. In the middle of these places people were setting off these huge fireworks and they were exploding not too far from the actual buildings themselves. Quite a sight. All I could think about at this point, was how totally and unquestionably illegal all of this would be in the states, even in the most firework-friendly states. Every hour, there were more explosions than the previous one.
Around 11:30, we headed outside to watch the display from the river. There is no official Shanghai city fireworks display, which we by then we realized would have been totally unnecessary and likely ignored. Standing on the river, the sound of individual explosions became indistinguishable from the general hum of thousands of fireworks going off at the same time. Turning around 360 degrees, the flashing lights were inescapable. Individuals, businesses, and kids were all in a state of total pyromania. Although, I have never been to Iraq, or any war zone for that matter, I can guarantee that this was far more noisy and constant. In war, i believe, people run out of ammunition. But the Chinese don't run out of fireworks on CNY.
This was one of the most visually and aurally stunning experiences I have ever had. With total confidence I can say, put this on your list of things to do before you die. Also, don't wait too long because who knows how much longer the government will allow these displays (they were only recently allowed in Shanghai and Beijing). So, without further ado or delay, I encourage you to watch these two videos and however impressive (or unimpressive, as the case may be) these videos are, they are nothing like the real thing.
And you're definitely want to turn your sound on.
4th Night of Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year Shanghai 2006
This year Chinese New Year started this year on January 28 and went to February 12 or so. For the following two weeks, China is essentially on holiday. Kind like Christmas, except for two weeks. This is also the time of the largest movement of people of the world, as everyone picks up from the cities and heads home for family dinners and celebrations, and now an increasing number of people also coming to the cities to visit relatives.
Although I can't confirm these numbers right now, but if I remember correctly, Shanghai Daily reported that net, a million people left Shanghai for the holidays. Ok, big deal, I know. But that is net of 11 million people leaving and 10 million people arriving for the holiday over the two weeks. As a foreigner here, some of the Chinese are suprised to hear that we didn't have anything planned, kind of like having a friend in the States with no plans for Thanksgiving. But, all the foreigners at school here were warned by both Chinese and foreigners that this is the worst time to do traveling in China. Hordes of people camped out at train stations across the country waiting days for their trains (snow in the North apparently doesn't help train arrival times).
Anyway, I was also told the "real" CNY celebrations don't happen in the cities, so perhaps next year I will brave the crowds.
Some more background, the CNY comes about because of the traditional Lunar calendar not the Western calendar. So every year it changes and is around the end of January to February. It is also called, strangely enough, the Spring Festival. The "red envelopes" are used during this holiday and parents give them to their kids and they have money inside. The line the kids say translates to something like, "Happy new year (gong xi fa cai), give me a red envelope!"
So well, I'm rambling on now, and you've already probably skipped down to the videos below anyway. So let me tell you about what I did for this holiday.
On the Saturday night, the remaining people at school, perhaps 20 of us, all international students, went to Paulaner, a German restaurant right on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River and right across from the famous Bund. After a few locally brewed pints and a fantastic roast pork knuckle (is 100x better than it sounds!), the place started livening up and even the Germans started to get a bit roudy. Before I get into the topic of Germans, let me take a step back.
Fireworks. In the run up to the holiday, you could literally buy fireworks anywhere. This was evident in that every night you heard fireworks going off, and I don't mean little black cat fireworks, I'm talking full on 100-200 foot high explosions. Strangely, it seemed the poorer the area, the more fireworks were going off. This, in itself, was amazing, having a light show every night of the week for the two weeks *before* the holiday. Then I discovered the Carrefour fireworks stand. No, I didn't mistype. This was no ordinary fireworks stand. They sold tons of stuff, from cheap $1 up to $100 boxes.
Fast forward a bit to the Saturday. The fireworks started at about 6am or so. For the rest of the day, the bangs of gunpowder were inescapable. Again, I was amazed. Little did I know what was in store later that night.
On the way to Paulaner (sorry for the lack of continuity, this is why I am not a professional writer), there are tons of these apartment tower complexes. In the middle of these places people were setting off these huge fireworks and they were exploding not too far from the actual buildings themselves. Quite a sight. All I could think about at this point, was how totally and unquestionably illegal all of this would be in the states, even in the most firework-friendly states. Every hour, there were more explosions than the previous one.
Around 11:30, we headed outside to watch the display from the river. There is no official Shanghai city fireworks display, which we by then we realized would have been totally unnecessary and likely ignored. Standing on the river, the sound of individual explosions became indistinguishable from the general hum of thousands of fireworks going off at the same time. Turning around 360 degrees, the flashing lights were inescapable. Individuals, businesses, and kids were all in a state of total pyromania. Although, I have never been to Iraq, or any war zone for that matter, I can guarantee that this was far more noisy and constant. In war, i believe, people run out of ammunition. But the Chinese don't run out of fireworks on CNY.
This was one of the most visually and aurally stunning experiences I have ever had. With total confidence I can say, put this on your list of things to do before you die. Also, don't wait too long because who knows how much longer the government will allow these displays (they were only recently allowed in Shanghai and Beijing). So, without further ado or delay, I encourage you to watch these two videos and however impressive (or unimpressive, as the case may be) these videos are, they are nothing like the real thing.
And you're definitely want to turn your sound on.
4th Night of Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year Shanghai 2006
