New Year Fireworks

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. This is the biggest celebration in China. There is a real sense of togetherness among the Chinese people. Before I came to China my preconceptions of CNY were that of big carnivals with dragons and stuff in all of the streets. It is actually quite the opposite, all the people in a family will make a real effort to get home from wherever they may be and spend the time inside with the family. It shows the huge importance that family still has in the center of Chinese culture.

One way that the family will celebrate is by setting off fireworks. On Wednesday night they were going off from about 6pm until 2am, non stop. Seriously; bonfire night or even our New Years Eve can't compete with the amount of fireworks going off. The problem is that they tend not to go for the pretty ones instead just endless roles of firecrackers and bangers. They were constantly so loud that we had to turn the volume of the TV up to full blast. It was like being in a WW2 film. Jen slept really badly that night as we just couldn't get Tabitha off to sleep, I seemed to fare a little better. Heres a little clip to give you an idea:




I can't believe the ignorance to safety when handling fireworks that people here have. I have seen loads of children, under 10 years old lighting and throwing fireworks around. In one instance I was in an elevator with a child of maybe 7 and his granddad. The child had a toilet roll tube with paper on each end and a fuse coming out of one end in one hand, and a lighter in the other. The kid was teasing his granddad lighting the lighter and holding it near to the fuse. I was thinking, if he accidentally lights that fuse what do I do? Try to hide in a corner or try and stamp it out?

Then that night our next door neighbors' young grandson was firing rockets, bangers and other little fireworks out of their 12th floor flat window.



Yesterday was also Jenna's birthday. We went into the center of the city and had a nice time and then in the evening we had a treat...a lovely meal at Pizza Hut....very posh.