Fireworks

New Years celebrations are a totally different animal in Asia. The Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) is spent with your family, not rowdy strangers. The streets of Beijing were relatively quite while we were there. Many of the stores and restaurants were closed the entire time.

We had no expectations for festivities except for a magnificent fireworks display. Now my only experience with fireworks is going to a city funded show where people gather to look in one direction as the explosives are set off over a body of water far from the spectators. Very regulated, very safe. No such thing in Beijing. First of all, the sound of fireworks were basically constant starting on New Year's Eve morning and lasting over 36 hours. There was no need to seek out one place to go see them because they were everywhere.

After the sun went down we decided to go walk around a lake that is known for having many restaurants and bars. Along the way we stopped at countless store fronts to watch families setting off their own fireworks. We would stop partly for safety, because they were right on the sidewalk, but mostly in awe of what was going on around us. These were not little sparklers or roman candles, these were heavy duty fireworks. We spent most of the walk slightly on edge for fear of being blown up on the side of the road. I also jumped and sometimes screeched from the startling loud crashes too many times to count. Car alarms were constantly going off. It was like walking through a war zone.

Beyond the explosives on the sidewalk, there was not that much night life to be had. Most restaurants and bars were closed for the holiday, so after a leisurely walk out in the cold we decided the best thing to do was go to bed so that we could be refreshed for our early morning trip to the Great Wall the next day. We had lights out by 11:00 pm. Then midnight rolled around....

I am a heavy sleeper. When I'm out it usually takes a very loud noise for a very extended period of time before I am aroused from my slumber. A little after midnight I awoke thinking our building was being bombed. The fireworks chaos had escalated to an extravaganza. I laid in bed for a bit just looking out the window. Then got up to really look out the window. Finally Maranda and I realized that this insanity was not dying down any time soon and threw on coats over our pjs and ventured out into the night.

It was immediately apparent why I had thought our building was under attack when I first woke up. A bunch of foreigners were right outside the hostel lighting some of the smaller firecrackers that just sound like gun shots. It was at this point that I saw the most people out on our street. It was basically the same experience we had had earlier in the night, but increased in intensity 10 fold. Yet again I stood in awe, elated by what was happening around me.

I was too much of a tourist in this moment to feel like I was a part of the festivities, but was happy to just be an observer. There was a moment that I witnessed amongst some of the other hostel patrons that really affected me for some reason. Nothing special really, just a few drunk young white British guys setting off fireworks and hanging on each other yelling happy new year, but some how that was the moment that finally made me understand the weight of this whole experience. I was in China, on New Years, witnessing a part of their culture with many other people from all around the world. It was just really cool.....