P.S. Just when I thought the activities were over some lion dancers came to our neighborhood. They cleared the school and the area of any evil spirits lurking in the corners. We are good to go for 2008!

It’s Saturday, Feb. 9th. It’s 8:00 in the morning. It’s quiet. Surprisingly so. Perhaps the activities are over. Someone in my position never quite knows. This may be the downside to being a foreigner and a nonChinese speaker in China or it may be part of the charm. That aside the last few days have been interesting.

We’ve been celebrating Spring Festival. I’ve learned to say “xin nian hao!” (Happy New Year) and toasted everyone and everything at lunches and dinners. We’ve made jiaozi/dumplings and eaten more than I imagined possible.

Like our Christmas, Spring Festival activities spread over several days with the central and most important days being Feb 6 and 7 this year. Those dates change each year as the Chinese year, now referred to by Owen College students as the “old way,” is based on the lunar cycle

On Wednesday we witnessed people cleaning. Laundry was done. Houses were swept, mopped and dusted. Looked like some windows and doors had been painted. Then the new couplet banners and door signs were hung at the doors. That's what our neighbor and his son are doing in this photo. They set off firecrackers as just before they drove off. I imagine they were headed to a hometown in the countryside where they were spending the festival with family.

Downtown was busy that morning with last minute shoppers. So many chickens were needed the vendors lined the street with their baskets. Round fruit, like apples, oranges, pomelos, dried persimmons and pears, were in much demand. There was also a sticky rice New Year’s cake. Kilos and kilos of candy were carted away. And firecrackers, fireworks, red lanterns and red envelopes appeared in many stands. People give children gifts of money in the red envelopes, but here someone decorated a bush with the envelopes.

Wednesday evening burning candles, burning incense and sometimes tables laden with bowls of rice, cups of tea, and a plate of duck were placed outside doors. These were gifts for the ancestors.

After dinner we wondered down to the Li River where we set off our own fireworks and also enjoyed others’ displays. It was amazing. People had everything from small sparklers to large color-changing, form-changing, “awe” inspiring fireworks. Then we walked through downtown and were surprised to find it so quiet. The streets were deserted. So about 10:30 I left the group and came on home where I turned on the TV to watch the nationally televised variety show which apparently most people were at home watching.

I admit I fell asleep. Most of you will not be surprise. But at 11:45 I was awakened. I have no pictures of what was happening. My camera does not take a good nighttime photo, and even if it did, I don’t think a picture would capture this event. Yes, the fireworks were stupendous. And more so when one stopped to think that they were set off by individuals, not civic or government groups. Individuals were in charge of this production of large colorful explosions in the sky. Added to the color show was the noise of the firecrackers. When I first stepped out of the apartment, a neighbor was lighting a long strand of firecrackers. I could hear other long strands firing behind me, to my left and to my right. As one strand died down others fired off at different homes. The air was filled with the noise, the smell, and the smoke. The sound reverberated off the houses and the karsts and me. Fireworks shook the sky above me; firecrackers shook the earth I stood on. This dramatic outpour of color and noise continued for nearly an hour. The wonder is that all across China in every village, town, and city the same din exploded at the same time. Perhaps you heard it?

By one o’clock everything was quiet.

Thursday morning we awoke to more firecrackers. It was hard to believe that any evil spirits remained after the work taken to chase them away the night before. But one can never be too sure.

I spent the day in town. Kelly and I ate a lunch called clay pot. It’s meat and vegetables of your choice served with rice in a clay pot. Very delicious. These two girls with their cotton candy joined us at our table.
After lunch we found a table on a corner along West Street where we camped for the rest of the day drinking osmanthus tea, visiting with many who stopped by and waiting for the lions. We thought we had missed them but still we persevered. Good thing. Before the day was over we saw them twice

They paraded through town stopping at each place of business where they danced, bowed and were given money in the red envelops. The money is payment for chasing the evil away from the businesses. Some store owners placed their red envelopes high above the door and the lion needed to work to reach it. Others just placed it in his mouth. There were three creatures at times, other times only two. They were accompanied by a drum and cymbals. It was very festive.

The days and streets since have been quieter. A few firecrackers and fireworks, but not many. I’m packing in preparation for a six-week long holiday in the States. I fly home on Monday. I'm glad I stayed to experience Spring Festival but it will be good to spend time with family and friends at home too.

I‘ve been on holiday since Monday, January 21. Life is a bit different on holiday. More time to read? Maybe. More time to study Chinese? Not really. More time to wonder where the time went? Yes!

We’ve had some bad weather in China this past week. Turns out Spring Festival this year is going to be even more like Christmas in the U.S. …you know with all the worry about delays, changed plans, and closed roads, stations and airports

But before the bad weather hit, I did make a trip to Guilin. Rosely who was with me for a month and a half in Ankang in 2006 is now a tour guide in Guilin. She was showing some friends the sights in Guilin and I joined them for an afternoon. After they met me at the bus station, we headed across this walking street toward that hill in the background. The land around that hill is now a college and a park but once was the home of royal princes, the site of the “imperial testing house,” and the location of Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s headquarters for the North Expedition.

We looked at the fortune well, the couple tree, the outside of the earlier palace which is now an administrative building, and then climbed these stairs on Solitary Beauty Peak. Here Rosely is with her college English classmate and his childhood friend. I’m looking up these stairs wondering if they could be any steeper and why I am going to climb them. But the climb was really nothing compared to the climb at HuaShan in 2006!

Next we went to Seven Star Park. I was most interested in the cave there. Not because I’m that interested in caves but because I’d just heard there are people who come to the Guilin/Yangshuo area to explore caves. Apparently there are many uncharted caves and there are quite a group of foreigners who want to explore them. They spend weeks and sometimes months down in the caves, making maps and spelunking (Yes, I know that word.) So I went into the Seven Star Park’s charted cave with renewed interest, and came out with the renewed conviction that I will not be spending one night in a cave. However, I was surprised at how warm the temperature inside the cave was. It was much warmer than the outside temperature. A spelunker has since told me the temperature inside a cave is always the average of the annual temperature outside the cave. So caves in this area are always 20C/78F. The temperature in Guilin that day was 7C/44F. No wonder we braced ourselves as we prepared to step out into the real world again.

The trip to Guilin was during the first week of my holiday. The next week we had a day without power. That night we heard that many parts in China were experiencing heavy ice and snow storms. So the next morning some of us decided to climb to the TV tower in Yangshuo. The top of the karsts is where the ice in Yangshuo has been. We wanted to see it. It’s a 45 minute climb to the TV tower. The view on the climb is instructive. You get a much better perspective on the location of places. That blue roof and the white roof to it’s right are the covered market where fresh meat, vegetables, and so many other food stuffs are sold daily. The green area just beyond the market and including the karst with the pagoda is Yangshuo Park. And look at how the buildings nestle around the karst.

Near the top we did see the ice. Just on the plants. Not on the path. It was a heavily laden branch bent over the path that final caused us to turn back.

That was earlier this week. The rest of the week we spent feeling lucky that we only lost power occasionally and only for brief periods of time. We heard from other people in other provinces of water and power outages and being stranded by snow and ice. But we only had rain and colder than normal temperatures. We stayed close to our heaters reading and dining.

That is until yesterday when we did venture out to Shelly’s place on the river. She has started a new adventure. It’s called The Li Riverside Hotel. She showed us the rooms. Spacious. Big windows with views. And bathtubs! She served us a huge lunch in thanks to Laurie who has started taking a volunteer to her school where she trains young people to work in the tourist industry. These are young people who did not pass the high school entrance exam. In the picture are Laurie, Shelly, Michelle, Betts, me and Kelly.

It hasn’t rained all day. It’s nearly 4 o’clock. It’s February 1st. And yes, I’m wondering where all the time goes.