Happy New Year

For those that remember the videos I posted last year around Chinese New Year, rest assured that the scene was similar this year in Yantai over the last few days. I do not have the cable to upload pictures and videos. It is in transit on the way to Yantai. So, if you want an idea of what the fireworks were like, check-out the blog post from last year.

To sum it up verbally, the fireworks have been pretty much non-stop for the past three days. On New Year's Eve, which was two days ago, my neighbor invited me to a local restaurant to eat dinner with his family - his wife, two daughters and their friends, and his parents-in-law. The only people drinking "yellow wine" at the table were me, him, and his father-in-law. I have no idea why the Chinese drink this stuff. It's basically the equivalent of sitting down to a steak dinner and drinking whiskey at the same time. I like steak and whiskey, but you have to separate the two, right?.

The food was terrific. There were about ten different dishes and among them were bluefish, broccoli, diced pork, and fried squid. I like the Chinese style of eating - a giant spinning glass on top of the table so you can grab a little bit of everything.

After dinner, we did what I had been waiting to do all night: Light some fireworks. Last year, I was only a witness to the mayhem. This year, thanks to the previous dwellers at my apartment, I would be a participant. When I moved in last week, I noticed a dozen red balls with funny Chinese writing in one of the closets. Each had a long thin fuse attached to the top and I couldn't wait to light them up to see what they did.

So, I walked across the street to the middle of a parking lot, lit the fuse and took off running. About ten seconds later, this thing exploded with a loud boom, sending green sparks across the street, while setting off about ten car alarms. Then I knew what I was dealing with. Essentially, these are the same fireworks you see around July 4th, but I don't have the piece that shoots them into the sky. Instead, I just light them on the ground.

I lit off four more that night and two started small brush fires that I had to stomp out. Of course, everytime one went off, it just blended in with the scenery. For miles around, thousands of Yantainese were doing the same, with the crescendo arriving around midnight. Around 1am, the noise finally subsided enough to fall asleep. But that only lasted until 5:30. Yeah, that's right- 5:30 a.m.

Last night, on our way home from dinner, my colleague and I noticed a lull in the action. It was only 10 o'clock, but the madness had calmed. So, we fired off one of the red bad boys, jostling the neighborhood. Two blocks away, we heard a car alarm go off and laughed. After all, when in Rome, er, Yantai.....