Chinese Near Year

Having received a week of vacation in honor of this holiday, it seems only right to elaborate on the celebration itself. This massive holiday which comprises of family, friends and feasting sends millions of Chinese in motion every February, filling every train, plane.

As you should know from eating at a Chinese restaurant at least once in your life – each year is assigned a different animal mascot for a 12 year cycle. This is the year of the Rat, my year. After speaking with a Chinese girl yesterday, apparently having it be ‘your year’ is not all that good. If I don’t wear something red every day, it will bring bad luck – my Red Sox t-shirt might get smelly in a hurry. Because of the sheer impossibility of this task, and because even wearing red can’t deter all disasters that come with it being ‘my year’, I am supposed to have a very difficult year full of stress (but am more than happy to report none so far…. Oh gosh, I think I just jinxed it!). Thankfully just because it is the year of the rat doesn’t mean people sell rats as souvenirs or pets.

The most obvious think about Chinese New Year is, first and foremost, this is a loud holiday. The noise is said to scare away evil spirits – I think people just like it when things go BOOM. The Chinese will set off firecrackers whenever they want, meaning the party doesn’t have to stop. In America, we celebrate with fireworks, which I don’t need to tell you were invented over here and are quite pretty, however in China they have fireworks, but prefer firecrackers, the big difference being it’s all the bang without any of the glitz or glamour, plus anyone can do it. By the 2nd day, the streets were littered with red confetti, a testiment to the noisy explosions which had come before. People the past week or so have had no reservations about detonating firecrackers at noon, midnight or five AM. Sleeping was at a premium, but the celebrations were not episodes of drunken debauchery. Instead they were genuinely happy (sober-enough) people with friends and family enjoying mankind’s ability to blow stuff up and make really loud noises – which I think everyone can relate too.

The pinnacle of the festivities is watching the dragon dancers bless the homes. I was lucky enough to stumble across numerous dragon dance teams, increasing my understanding of what makes a good and bad presentation. All the parties were of at least 2 dragons, and up to 6, each elaborately decorated with brightly colored scales, and comprised of two men – the head and the butt. In addition there was always a large drum and some cymbals, and one group even had a trombone to play music to accompany the dances. None of this really mattered however – all that really mattered was how many firecrackers the host had.

The dragons would dance in front of the house while the band played, and firecrackers were thrown at the dragon’s feet creating a deafening series of explosions. The more firecrackers the house had, the longer the celebration, the luckier the house would be – one dance went on for 5 minutes of non-stop firecrackers. After that the dragons enter the home, bless the house, and then retreat for more firecrackers and dancing before moving on. Occasionally people will hold bags of food out the second (or 3rd) story window of an apartment, so the dragons must work together to form a human pyramid which one of them climbs to reach, and eat, the food.

The spectacle of the holiday is fantastic, with stunningly beautiful dragon dances and the volume of noise from the firecrackers. It wasn’t insanity, like I had expecting, as people seemed content to enjoy their time with their friends and family. I remember first celebrating this holiday in London, which was insanity with thousands of people cramming into a small Chinatown to watch a few dragons shuffle about. This was much less stressful, and therefore more enjoyable. I even ate the traditional dumplings on New Years Day!