Bliss

I hardly dare say this, but after three weeks, the firecrackers have finally - whisper it - stopped.

There was one final night of sheer deafening bombardment on Monday, which was 'Lantern Festival', the last official night of the lunar new year celebrations, which falls on the first full moon following the first new moon (hope you're following this). This was complete with not only the biggest full moon in 52 years or something, but also proper fireworks - pretty ones, not just those that go bang. Of course they set them off dangerously near to buildings, as before. In Beijing the staff of CCTV apparently even managed to set fire to their own brand-new building, which would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that a firefighter got killed in the ensuing blaze.

The noise here went on until about 2am and we thought, 'Oh thank God, from tomorrow it's illegal for them to set these bloody things off for another whole year'. But of course, there were one or two chancers who set some more off on Tuesday, either because they had a few left and just wanted to get one in under the wire, or because they were terminally stupid and didn't know what day it was, I presume.

But by yesterday there was blissful, beautiful, wonderful, heavenly, SILENCE, and the men with brooms who sweep up snow are busy sweeping vast quantities of ash onto the snow so that there are piles of grey stuff everywhere. Not that there's much snow left now since, as of last week some time, it's officially 'spring' and even made it to - wait for it - zero degrees one day!! We nearly got our bikinis out.

It's a shame though; I used to like fireworks - when you only ever got to see (and hear) them TWO NIGHTS A YEAR at the most. But after three whole weeks of being woken up by huge explosions at 8am every day - especially Sundays - and often having them either go on all evening, or else lull us into a false sense of security by being quiet until midnight and THEN starting, I have to say I shall miss them like a hole in the head.

Which is what it felt like sometimes.

Happy Birthday, Rover

We know January’s a dull and depressing month back home, so we thought we’d give you an excuse for a celebration.

If you have a dog, today is the day to dress up Pooch in his best party hat, bake him a doggy cake and invite all his little doggy friends over for a few games of Pass the Bone or Pin the Tail on the Postman. Yes folks, according to Chinese New Year lore, today (the second day of the lunar new year) is all dogs’ birthday.

Now what could be more sensible than that? All the pets I ever had were born long before we bought or acquired them, so we always had to make birthdays up for them and more or less guess their ages – with the exception of the cat who had the same birthday as me, although I suspect my parents may have made that one up too out of sentimentality. Here, you’ve got your doggy date of birth all sorted for you thanks to centuries of tradition.

Apologies to cat-lovers, by the way, as the moggies don’t seem to get a look-in on this one. Actually I don’t think many people have cats here; I’ve only seen about three (all on the same day, as it happens – dunno what that signifies!). Most people have what we call SLDs (Silly Little Dogs) of the type beloved of supermodels and elderly Spanish ladies. In fact, prior to coming to China I thought Barcelona was the SLD capital of the world, but Harbin or Shanghai may well have stolen its crown.

Now, while I’m on the subject of New Year lore, here are some Errata (tut!) from the previous post. According to Peter, the fires on street corners are NOT made from coals but from paper. (It looks likes coals to me.) If you want your ancestors to get a car, you DRAW a car on a piece of paper and then burn it, not write the word. (What’s the difference if it’s in Chinese characters anyway?!) The third and fourth days of the new year are the ones for visiting graves, NOT the second day – obviously, you’ll be too busy making jelly and ice cream for your dog on Day 2 – silly of me. And you’ll be pleased to know, I’m sure, that Kevin managed to get a cancellation for a second class airline ticket home so didn’t have to fly first class after all – though having flown second class on Chinese airlines many times now myself, frankly in his position I would have stuck to the ‘Oh no, I can’t get a ticket’ line, seeing as someone else was paying!

So, how did we spend New Year’s Eve? The one two nights ago, obviously, not the real one; we spent that, ironically enough, having a Chinese meal in Wetherby and then discoing the night away with my irrepressible in-laws (the oldest teenagers in town) at the Swan and Talbot, and a jolly good night was had by all. I was about to say that this is the first time I’ve ever had two NYEs in the space of a month, but in fact that’s not strictly true. In 1997, if memory serves, we not only had two Hogmanays but even saw the new year in twice in the same night (on about December 19th) - but that’s another story.

I was thinking we could maybe travel the world in search of cultures who celebrate New Year at other times, and see if we can get into the Guinness Book of Records for the most New Years in a year, or something? We could be like that crazy bloke somewhere in England who celebrates Christmas 365 days a year. I can see us wearing party hats all the time, shrieking ‘The bells, the bells!’ in an over-excited manner whenever midnight came and perpetually singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ while attempting to snog strangers at every opportunity, until everyone was thoroughly sick of us.

But I digress.

The main feature of the other night’s celebrations was, of course, fireworks. We needn’t have worried about not seeing any, or having to stand out in the cold to watch them – they were being set off continuously all evening, in many cases just feet from our window.

In the UK when people do fireworks in their back gardens on November 5th, it’s pretty safe, partly because the fireworks are so – well – crap, and partly because everyone has been so indoctrinated into the discipline of ‘lighting the blue touchpaper and then withdrawing’ (always sounds a bit rude to me) and keeping small children and animals at least 20 feet away at all times, that the frisson of excitement factor is generally nil.

Here they like to live on the edge. Letting off fireworks a couple of feet outside the front door of a tower block, so that the flying, burning bits (and boy did they fly) land on people’s balconies and set fire to stuff? Not a problem. The fire brigade were called, and a few people – but not many, really, considering the size of the apartment block in question, which was just across the street from us – sensibly put on their coats, evacuated the building and waited outside until they could see it was safe to return. But most, including the people in the flat ALMOST DIRECTLY ABOVE the one with the fire, stayed in and watched out of the window.

No fewer than four fire engines arrived, which seemed a little excessive in view of the fact that this scenario must surely have been being replicated a hundred times all over Harbin. Two firemen eventually appeared in the window directly above the blaze, which was about 14 floors up. The flat itself was in darkness, the residents presumably absent and unaware that their precious collection of rotting cabbages or whatever they were storing on their balcony was going up in smoke. The firemen tried to hose out the flames, but were unable to get the right angle. They therefore withdrew for a consultation of the type the Chinese do best, discussing the best course of action at length while the disaster unfolds before their eyes (heaven forbid that anyone should lose face by making a quick decision). Finally the guy from the flat opposite the one they were in (the one mentioned above who’d been watching the whole thing from his window), came out onto his balcony and poured a bucket of water over the fire beneath, extinguishing it completely.

Total time and manpower expended by the fire brigade: twenty minutes, four engines, goodness knows how many fire-fighting personnel in each, and one very long hose. Result: zero. Number of people burning to death in other parts of the city while this fiasco was taking place: unknown.

Apart from this, our chief entertainment of the evening was watching the annual CCTV Gala on telly, helpfully partially dubbed and subtitled by our friends at good old CCTV9. Traditionally, all Chinese families would gather round the TV after their New Year’s Eve meal (much like the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show in Britain in the 70s) to watch this five-hour extravaganza. Clearly many people nowadays prefer to be outside setting fire to their neighbours’ balconies and deafening unsuspecting westerners with non-stop firecracker explosions, but the Gala is bigger and better than ever nonetheless.

Words are a poor tool with which to describe this event. Sorry to hark back to the 1970s yet again, but that was the last time that we attempted a variety show to even begin to rival this. There was song, dance and, er, ‘comedy’ on a gigantic scale. The costumes were huge. The hair was huger - and more glittery, and more solid. Every performer was backed by several hundred dancers in elaborate attire chosen to reflect the theme of the song. The set had a jaw-dropping backdrop with vast pillars and a constantly changing computer graphic showing everything from swirling flowers to happy children gamboling in the fields, and even a giant dancing ginseng root for the rap song about Chinese herbal medicine. (Yes really. Choice lyrics: ‘The medicine may be bitter but the affliction is more galling’, or ‘I will write you a prescription to cure the ill caused by fawning on foreign things’.) This was performed by a pretty boy in a gold jacket and a tiny six-year-old Michael-Jackson-alike who could spin on his head.

If the singing was bad, the comedy sketches reached new heights of awfulness. Unfortunately they didn’t subtitle them fully, just gave a summary of the plot, which didn’t really illuminate why everyone was roaring with laughter or why the flippin’ thing went on for twenty minutes. We did laugh, however, when it came to the sketch which for some inexplicable reason was set in ‘an expensive Scottish restaurant’ in a remote Chinese village. (Someone should tell them there are no Scottish restaurants, even in Scotland.) I think the Scottish theme had been introduced for comedy value merely in order to get a camp waiter in a skirt on stage. This chap’s costume was basically a LONG, tartan-ish skirt, complete with white lace frill around the hem and a strange flap at the side. With this he wore a long, silky, white tunic, a tartan scarf flung rakishly around his neck, and shiny black brogues. Presumably this is how they think Scottish men dress (in their ‘stripy skirts’)!! Regrettably we never found out what was on the menu in this Scottish restaurant as that bit wasn’t translated.

In any case, by then the explosions from outside had got so loud that we couldn’t hear the telly any more. From about 11pm, if you’d phoned us you could seriously have been forgiven for thinking we were in a war zone. It was constant, and absolutely deafening. We had to shout to each other to make ourselves heard. Fortunately, as I say, this did succeed in drowning out the finale of the Gala, which consisted of a number of medleys of very scary ‘Isn’t China GREAT??!!!’ songs clearly from a previous era which shall remain nameless.

At about 1.30am, the noise had just about subsided enough for us to go to bed. They very considerately waited until 8.15am the next morning before starting again. It took us most of yesterday to recover.

Thank goodness we don’t have a dog. I just couldn’t handle the stress of a party today.

What a load of Ox

Is it a bull? Is it an ox? Who cares, it's Chinese New Year!

The whole of China has gone de-mob happy (this being one of only two weeks' holiday that most of them get each year), trains and planes are filled to bursting, the shops are crammed with people making last minute purchases of festive fare, and the trees are full of pretty lights. Everything pretty much shuts down for a week, and attempting to get anything done in the preceding couple of weeks is a struggle. Sound familiar? Having just spent Christmas in the UK it gives one a distinct sense of déjà vu. I have to say though, they really know how to do fairy lights in Harbin. There are even fake trees whose branches are made entirely from lights. Princes Street, eat your heart out.

Curiously, the new year holiday is more regularly referred to as 'Spring Festival', which is kind of hard to reconcile with the temperatures of -20 and the permanent covering of ice. Usually it all happens in February, but being a lunar festival (the second new moon after the winter solstice - or the first new moon in Aquarius, according to your taste) it does sometimes fall early, like those annoying years when Easter's in March. Technically this is the year of the Earth Ox, not just any old ox, and each year is also considered either yin or yang on an alternating cycle, so the astrological thing is much more complicated than it at first appears. I'm not going to pamper you with links here though as I'm sure you can do your own Google search if you're genuinely curious about it!

All day and night for the last week we've been deafened by the sound of fireworks and firecrackers going off all around. The firecrackers are in long strings which means the explosions go on for ages. They're allowed to do this for a week before New Year and two weeks afterwards, but not at any other time. Great - three whole weeks of being kept awake until 2am on weeknights and woken up at 9am on Sunday. Guy Fawkes night has nothing on this. If Russia ever decided to invade China, this would be the time to do it - they could shell for a week before anyone noticed.

Unfortunately there's not much to see though. You do see the occasional firework going up, but the emphasis is definitely on noise rather than the visual. Apparently the idea is to frighten off some demon called Nian, which is the word for 'year'. He is also scared of the colour red (clearly a bit of a wimp, as demons go) which is why they hang up red lanterns in doorways. Of course if you were paying attention during last year's Olympics coverage, you'll all know that red is also associated with good luck, so there are lots of red decorations about. Children are traditionally given red envelopes containing money at New Year, and people like to wear red clothes.

Anyway we were hoping there'd be a big public fireworks display tonight, but we got our man to phone the government (as you do!) and he tells us there isn't. These really only seem to happen in places like Hong Kong where the private use of fireworks and firecrackers is banned for safety reasons. I don't think they care much about safety in Harbin but they do like to avoid anything which requires organisation in advance or officials actually doing any work. It's a bit flippin' cold to hang around watching fireworks anyway, so I'm not that bothered.

The weirdest thing we've observed - speaking on a relative scale, this being a country of ultimate weirdness - is the fires on street corners. People traditionally light fires to make offerings to their ancestors: for example, if you think they might want a car, you write down 'car' on a piece of paper and burn it - a bit like a primitive form of online shopping. The thing is that they do this in the gutter, on the street corner. Over an open fire of burning coals. Right next to all the cars, buildings, trees and people. Like I say, safety not a big concern really.

But the main thing is that it's all about family. They have a big family meal on New Year's Eve, then they go out visiting relatives the next day, and on the second day they're supposed to visit the graves of their ancestors I think, but this is now considered bad luck. Anyway, in this day and age most people have to travel to see their families, hence the rail and air travel chaos. Kevin was in despair earlier in the week having failed to get a ticket for any train for his first visit home in a year. In the end he had to fly first class as that was all he could get. Time to learn the merits of forward planning, my boy.

It's also traditional to start the year afresh by cleaning your house thoroughly before New Year's Eve (oh damn, that's today - oh well, missed it!) but you mustn't clean at all during the first few days of the new year in case you sweep the good luck away (now it's starting to sound like my kind of holiday). You should also get a haircut and an entire new set of clothes, which probably explains the shopping frenzy last weekend. The supermarkets are full of really cute traditional mandarin-style outfits for kiddies. On the first day of the new year you're supposed to leave your windows open to let the good luck in, but in view of the climate I say: arrange these words to make a well-known phrase or saying: that, soldiers, game, sod.

However, in keeping with the 'out with the old' ethos, I thought I would share with you the following video which I actually filmed back in September when we first moved into our apartment but which I've been unable to upload here due to having an ADSL line with the diameter of a pinhead. It shows the fab but crazy Chineseness of the flat, including the kitchen light which we dubbed 'the disco jellyfish' (you'll recognise it when you see it) which sadly died this week and had to be replaced with a boring white light.

Also, since I had to enlist the help of a kind friend back home at Christmas (thanks John) to get any video clips onto this blog at all, you've also got more ceilidh dancing from our party back in December. Sorry for the tardiness in sharing these, but make the most of them as they may well be the last videos you ever see here. And it is also Burns Night, so a bit of Scottishness doesn't go amiss. Incidentally Peter got a letter from Lidl this week telling him they've extended their range of kilts. It's a good thing we're over here, I'd have had to hold him back.

Happy New Year! Again.