I have taken refuge in an internet cafe in the basement of an office building, but the vibrations from above can still be felt. Today is officially the last day of Spring Festival (the 15th day of the lunar caledar) and to mark the ocassion, the city is lighting every firecracker and firework they can get their hands on. In a way, tonight is more surreal than the actual Chinese New Year considering that the city is working at full capacity, the streets are packed once again, the buses and subways are full, and overcrowed sidewalks spill onto the streets and into cracks between moving cars and bicycles (from above, a massive ant colony comes to my mind, especially since everyone has black hair) - yet colorful and LOUD explosives are going off in every direction.
As I stand in a crowd at a crosswalk in Wudaokou, I take a moment to observe the chaos of Beijing intersect with the chaos of Spring Festival. To my right, next to hundreds of communters flooding out of the subway station, a few men wearing dirty wife beaters set off a series of cherry bombs. To my left, a cop slowly chases a man with a few dozen rainbow-colored balloons attached to the back of his bike (clearly an unathorized vendor). And in front of me, three buses coming from three different directions find them selves stuck in the middle of the intersection, causing dozens of bikes and pedestrians to storm the pavement as the bus drivers try to resolve their pedicament. Beijing is back.
Today is traditionally called Yuanxiao Festival named after the ball-like food eaten on this holiday. A yuanxiao is made of sticky rice flour filled with sweet stuffing and round in shape, symbolizing family unity and completeness. Personally, I do not think they are exceptionally tasty, however, the ones filled will chocolate are quite good.
The cease fire starts tomorrow as I was told in a text message from the government (they are worse tham most teenage girls) - in other words, I must remind myself to use an alarm clock tomorrow morning since a can no longer rely on 7 am wake up calls from the local firecracker junkies.
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3 comments:
Dear CGB2,
I am writing to you from southern California - this is the first I knew of your diary/blog online. You write well: colorful, sensitive, informative. I'll revisit often just to see what you see.
To catch up on what I'm doing you can visit my web site now and then.
www.harrietquimby.org
My articles about aviation mechanics are all on one page - "Past Contact!". I'm enjoying the freedom of writing articles and submitting photographs that I take with my new (but not expensive!) digital camera.
I shall be attending the launch ceremony for the new cargo ship called "The USNS Amelia Earhart" this April. Quite a shindig. I've documented the construction and now I know more than I need to know about welding a block to build a grandblock to build a ship!
I'm in the middle of my second book, "The Original Grand Canyon Airport - at Red Butte Arizona" so I'm chained to my computer writing my articles for magazines as well as the book....
As always I hope this finds you well. I hope to see Suzanne in AZ one of these days. I have a goal to live in Prescott some day.
Love,
Aunt C.
CGB2
I forgot to mention that I'm sad about E.D. Sr. as their family is really OUR family. "Big little bro" (CBG1) and I talked on the phone for a very long time yesterday with many memories shared.
Aunt C.
Damn chuck, that sounds like an awesome time. Hope all is well. Let me know if you plan on swinging back to the US any time soon.
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