Happy Niu Year

I think most of my readership does not know Chinese. So I have to explain the pun in the title. Its a new year in China! Year of the cow/ox (I prefer cow, but I think its officially the ox). In Chinese, cow/ox is Niu (pronounced something like Nee-oh). Sounds like New, get it? I think its cute.

I am amazed this is the 4th Chinese New Year I have been in Asia. The first year was 2002 and I was on vacation from teaching. My friend and I were in Dali, a small tourist town in the warm southwest Chinese province of Yunnan. We learned quickly that New Years meant firecrackers being set off on every inch of the street. (Firecrackers are supposed to scare ghosts of the past year away. Well, they also scare foreigners away). Just crossing the street, we got hit with the leftovers of the firecrackers. We ducked into a bookstore and didn't dare leave until the coast was clear. The next year, 2003, I was in Cambodia on a more extensive vacation than the previous year. Cambodia has a lot of Chinese people. There were fireworks, but nothing close to what I had experienced the previous year. I was also here in 2005. I was lucky enough to spend the New Year on a 48 hour train ride from Beijing to Kunming, capital of Yunnan. We could see fireworks out the window, but were safe within the confines of a train. Believe it or not, there were no firecrackers allowed on the train.

So now it is 2009. I am in Beijing. Being close to the city center, I thought I would be safe from fireworks and firecrackers being set off within 5 feet of me. On the eve of New Year's I stayed inside and watched a movie. I had to keep pausing the movie because the firecrackers going off right outside were too loud and I could not hear. As it got closer to midnight, the firecrackers switched to fireworks. I had a great show from the living room of the fourth floor apartment I am staying on.

The next day (Monday-the first official day of the 2-week festival), my Chinese friend Fang and her husband picked me up to go on a New Year's Day adventure. We ended up at a garden park in southern Beijing. It was a carnival inside. People were everywhere. There was cotton candy, carnival games with stuffed animal prizes, song and dance performances, and street food.


Lots of cows for sale.

Fang and I.

A unicyclist on a rope carrying an acrobat below him. This was done over a frozen lake.
Cute kid with a flower.

Fang and I burning the evil spirits away. (She was more serious than I).

So after the park, Fang and her husband asked me what I wanted to do next. They suggested a trip to the countryside. It was 2 pm and I wondered what we would possibly do in the countryside once we go there, but I agreed. I am always up for farmland and chickens and dirt. Well, we drove north and crossed a river that separates Beijing from Hebei province. Then we drove into a gated community filled with large single-family houses. I had heard about these suburban developments, but never seen one. Most urban Chinese live in apartments so houses are rare.

So most gated communities in the US have homes that all look alike. Here, we had streets that were all the same. Each had a different theme.
This was on the 'American style homes' street. The street ended in a cul-de-sac.
This was the Japanese style home street.

It was a bizarre experience. I could reflect on it more, but I think it speaks for itself. We got out of the car and Fang's husband told me to breath a lot because the air here in the 'countryside' was much better than in the city.