For weeks now the anticipation of the entire population of China has been building up. Special decorations have been for sale. Firework stands have gone up. Each family has hung out their rows of various animal parts to be cured for the big celebration.
The Lunar New Year marks the start of Spring Festival. In ancient times, a lion-like animal, is said to have come down out of the mountains on the last day of the year. He was very hungry, and would eat anything in sight, even humans. Eventually, the people figured out that they could scare him away by making loud sounds and with fire. The Chinese people spend New Year's Eve lighting fireworks, and the lion doesn't come.
And wow, do they do fireworks! I probably don't have to mention that my pyro husband had a great time with this whole firework thing. He went with the boys to pick out some fireworks from our little neighborhood store. He came back with quite the assortment! He had a ten foot long string of firecrackers. Also, for about 15.00 US, be bought this big square thing about a foot each way. We had no idea what it was, but Mike lit it, and ran the 80 yards it suggested. It was right up there with the Fourth of July Lagoon Firework finale! Wow! That was a pleasant surprise. I included a couple of artistic photos by Nicole. Also one of Eli watching them from the window. He prefers to watch them from the INSIDE. At midnight, it sounded like a battlefield. Mike and I went out on our balcony and watched fireworks all around us. It was like the Stadium of Fire times ten! It went on for over a half an hour, with everyone lighting all of the fireworks they had been saving for the big occasion. Well, at 6:00 am this morning, it started all over again, and the booms went on all morning.
The tradition is for everyone to travel home to their family. They spend New Year's Eve preparing food, and New Year's Day eating. On Friday alone, over 38 million people traveled by train (not including bus, airplane, etc). Please note that Saturday was the big travel day.
Yesterday, our driver was off. Michael and I were out running some errands, so we took a taxi. We had taken a taxi from the Sheraton Hotel. About an hour after we were dropped off, I realized that I had left my camera in the taxi. We knew it was gone for good. Well, we had to go back to the Sheraton, because Mike left some stuff at work. We decided to just see if the hotel could call the taxi company for us. To our surprise, the taxi driver had turned our camera into the police, and had called the Sheraton and left a message. This is unheard of! We were so relieved! The concierge at the Sheraton came with us to the police station to translate. There were about 5 or 6 policemen there. I went in to get it. They took around 20 photos of me, of the policeman handing the camera to me, etc. I wrote a thank you note to Mr. Shen, the taxi driver, that he will probably never know the content of (as I can't write in Chinese). It was quite the occasion. It was our own New Year Miracle! I've included a photo, taken with our camera, of a couple of the policemen with me. They insisted I give the thumbs-up sign!
