City on fire, and the mass exodus

I fear that this post is really going to fail to paint an honest picture of our experiences over the last week, which involved the biggest culture shock to our systems so far – Chinese New Year. I hope that the photos help in some way to communicate vividly what has been a crazy 8 days in January.

Following on from our last post and our return from the Longqing Ice Festival on Saturday night, we started to hear the consequences of a very lax approach to the policing of local fireworks laws as the official start time of the fireworks season started 2 days earlier than the Sunday midnight official time. Over the course of Saturday evening and Sunday we began hearing what sounded like sonic booms from behind our apartment, and at one stage we thought that BHP had moved in next door and started the groundwork for an open cut mine. Fast forward one week and we now just feel like we are living in the Gaza strip.

Crackers available in two sizes - BIG and OMG.

The Monday after our gorge trip was the official start of Chinese New Year, and the rule from midnight on Sunday are that there ARE no fireworks rules in regards to where you can set them off. It’s worth noting that there are some signs around the place marking fireworks exclusion zones, but these tended to be ignored in the madness that was 7pm Sunday evening to 2am the next day. No location was too crazy to be free of the fireworks festivities, including a following popular spots:

• Middle of major road intersections


• Within 10m of fireworks stalls and newspaper stands


• In front of/underneath the bonnet of parked cars (inevitably setting a number of car alarms off).


• Underneath awnings (causing at least one in our line of sight to go up in flames)

Without making it sound lawless and dangerous, the streets were the closest thing to anarchy I’ve ever seen this side of Devil’s Night – and we LOVED it. We were lucky to be invited to a work colleagues apartment on the 15th floor of the apartment block we were staying at when we first arrived, and at that height and with fireworks being let off directly below the window we were able to enjoy the crackers going off right in front of us. The Beijing Skyline looked absolutely amazing, and showed what can be achieved with a temporary scant disregard for one’s own safety and the safety of children (as I saw more than one 5 year old holding a cracker as it fired outwards from their hand). The walk home was like a walk in the light green, as we had to steer clear of disposed fireworks piles on the off chance that a late bloomer decides to finally shoot for the sky (so no looking down the barrel of the used firecrackers, else it could end in cycloptic tears).

Beijing from the 15th Floor - midnight, 26 January 2009.

The aftermath - major Beijing street, 2am. Amazingly it was all cleaned up by the next morning.

Me and Big Bertha.

It’s also important to get an idea of the size of the fireworks that we are talking about here. In Oz the complaints from many over the years is that all the good ones (read: powerful and dangerous and fun ones) have been banned and all we are left with is glorified sparklers. No issues on this front here. Head down to the local stand (the closest one being 150m from where I live) and I can buy a firecracker bigger than a milk crate for around $125 equivalent. Sounds a lot, but this one will fire for 5min continuously. God bless gunpowder.

Preparing the rocket for launch.

So come the evening of the 26th we also got together with fellow Aussies and celebrated Australia Day, and in honour of our home countries big one we did what the Romans do and set off some pyrotechnics. Most people either brought their own or chipped in for a stash that kept us going for a good 1hr, as we added our own little piece of Armageddon to the local festivities.

In saying that we loved the experience though, and we are certainly surprised by the stamina and resilience of the locals. We just wonder though when they might run out of enthusiasm because as much as we like the festivities, the noise and the fires (like the one that nearly set alight the building behind) are somewhat annoying and concerning respectively (jeez I feel old reading that). Adding to this is the fact that the 5th day of the holiday holds special significance, and in China that means extra fireworks.

Along with the fireworks festivities comes two other very important parts of Chinese New Year, those being the temple fairs and the mass movement of Chinese residents to other parts of the country (and in some cases out of the country) in order to reunite with their families. On the Tuesday we headed down to a place called Ditan Park which holds one of the biggest fairs, enjoying the company of a fellow Aussie I had met at the local supermarket and a Chinese family who had all the experience and know-how to give us the advantage over other Chinese Festival virgins. The fair itself was like the Canberra Show on MegaBlast 2000, with people crammed shoulder to shoulder in some areas particularly around the stalls and food areas. Having been a bit overwhelmed by the experience we decided to head home after lunch after seeing a great Chinese drumming performance led by a very spirited local girl in a tracksuit waving flags. Luckily we managed to bypass one particularly interesting spot in the park called “Slaughter Pavilion”, although the curiosity is still with me.

Sideshow Alley was in full swing at the Temple Fair, with this girl winning one prize worth her weight in teddy bear.

Such an inviting name, I'm surprised there wasn't a line up snaking all the way to the park entrance.

Outside of the festivals though it has been significantly quieter in Beijing for the last 10 days, as more than 1 million Beijinger’s have left the city to go back home to visit families. In some cases they will travel by plane, train and/or automobile (and possibly by tractor, bike and foot) for 4 days just to spend 3 days with their family before heading back again for work. The line-ups to the travel ticket centres were longer than the line-up for a laptop power outlet at a Beijing Starbucks, and had been building up for longer than previous years as people took to travelling early due to the financial crisis (likely due to cheaper tickets the earlier you travel – it’s PEAK season here).

Maddy and I enjoyed the stalls for the practicality of their wares.

On Thursday night we decided to head on down to the pub where I ‘played darts’ the previous week, and had the best pizza since we arrived (Beijing Duck pizza – GIDDY-UP!). Rather than heading straight home though we decided to wander up to “The Place”, which is a large open-air plaza with high-end (and expensive) shops either side of a centre area. To our amazement the centre area is host to a roof 75m long by 25m wide which is actually one big LED screen. Bit hard to describe the scale of this, save to say that you can’t see the whole screen no matter which way to sit unless you do a lot of cranking of the neck. It appears to be the same size as the LCD scroll used in the Olympic opening ceremony, except that it was 40m in the air and facing down. The ultimate iMax. The other great thing here (this one being temporary) was an ice skating rink which caught Maddy’s attention. After some serious negotiation we managed to get her home and headed back there last night and this afternoon for some great ice skating exhibitions from Maddy and Amy (while I sat and drank coffee). It certainly proved to be a good investment of time and $$ as Maddy is now skating by herself and doing exceptionally well.

The roof of The Place. The ultimate flat screen TV for the Tour De France (allowing you to see the start and end of the stage in the one single panorama).

In addition to all these things we have still managed to fit in some ‘normal’ tasks, the most important of which was to get ourselves a TV. On the advice of some friends who purchased one there the day before, we headed out to a shop a short cab drive away and took advantage of the CNY sales to pick up our first flat screen TV (yeah, we are a bit slow on the uptake I know). It was an adventure though, taking 3 hrs due to technical problems with the register at the shop. Good news is that they delivered it for free, a service which also includes a visit from the Sharp rep to unpack it and set it up correctly.

It took us a move to China to do it (we're a bit slow), but finally we have ourselves a purty picture box.

We also took the opportunity over the long weekend to move the food order up from our storage into our apartment pantry, which gave Amy a brief flashback of her Cannon’s supermarket days as I was given the Dummies Guide to facing shelves. Very exciting for some, but for me it was missing the professional touch that would have come if Amy still had her old red Woolworth’s jacket.

Our pantry shelves stocked with the essentials from home, all "faced" to Amy's high standards (WHAT-EVER!).

And so it was that the week again ended on the topic of food, as we headed out today for what was another great meal at The Place (backing up from a great lunch yesterday at the Bogong Restaurant – delicious, although the name gave me butterflies). We are certainly forming a list of great eating places to take guests out to when they visit, and all for diddly squat if you go the local food option. So be sure to come on over, and we’ll throw another pig’s intestine on the BBQ.

The Guihots and Beijing-based fellow Aussie heading into the Ditan Temple Fair.