Chinese New Year = Fireworks, Lots of Them

It is finally over.  The Chinese New Year Festival, called Spring Festival, ended last night with the full moon. According to the Chinese calendar, this is the Year of the Dragon. Here in Beijing, it means FIREWORKS.

We started noticing changes in the neighborhood right after the Christmas/New Year holidays. Since we work at an international school, we had several weeks of December off of work, returning on Jan 2. This allowed us family time and time to travel to the Philippines to get some beach time. Upon our return, we noticed small buildings popping up at the end of each block. We thought they were adding more police stations, but then I saw a warning sign “Danger: Explosives” pasted to the outside of one of the buildings next to my bus stop. “Hmmm, I thought. Could it be a fireworks shop?”

We were warned: “You may want to leave for the week of Chinese New Year (Jan. 22-28) because it gets crazy.” We took the advice and booked flights to Thailand for the first week (school break). We missed the initial beginning of the party, but since the party lasts 15 days, we were still able to capture the essence. We returned after a week from warm Chaing Mai to freezing Beijing and saw the fireworks shops were all open and started hearing the explosions day and night. 

During the day is the most startling. I am told that it is good luck for businesses to set off fireworks. This is done during the day while the business has office hours.  However, for the person NOT from China, it sounds like gunshots. Semi-automatic gunshots. This is startling.

In the evening, you can at least enjoy the beauty of fireworks; the lights and burst of color in the air. It feels festive and fun. We have a wonderful view of the city from our 21^st floor apartment. It feels fun unless you are trying to watch a movie.  It feels festive until 10 p.m. Then the fun ends and you want to get some sleep. But the party goes on, sometimes all through the night. I kept wondering “who is up at 3 a.m. to set off firecrackers?”

The grand finale happened last night (Lantern Festival) and ended it all. There were bursts of color and the rat-a-tat-tat of a roll of 1,000 or more firecrackers being set off right outside our window NONSTOP until midnight. They set them off right in the middle of the street, in courtyards, in alleys, ANYWHERE. Again, the displays were lovely until 10 p.m. I pretended it was a hailstorm to allow myself to fall asleep.

As I said, the fun is now over. The fireworks businesses were empty when I walked out this morning. Street cleaners will be busy for weeks gathering up the residual memories of Chinese New Year in Beijing. As for me, I cannot wait to get some sleep!