Happy New Year - Chinese Style!

A few weeks after our arrival the whole city celebrated for an entire week. There were fairs everywhere, banquets and fire works all throughout the day and night. We couldn't walk down the street without enthusiastic Beijingers lighting up firecrackers and shouting for joy.
Of course, the whole thing was not for us. While Jenn and I surely saw our arrival in the Northern Capital as something noteworthy, for the rest of the 20 million people living in Beijing, life went on with business as usual. It just so happened that the timing of our move coincided with the most important holiday of the entire year:
Spring Festival!

Spring festival, also called Chinese New Year, marks the new year as set by the lunar calendar, the workings of which no one could really explain to me. What matters is that for one week of the year, in late January or early February, EVERYONE in China gets off work and goes home to spend a week with his or her family. This holiday is especially noticeable in a city like Beijing, where most inhabitants are actually not native Beijingers, but people from every part of the country who come here to work. The massive exodus of people during this week leads to a plethora of infrastructure and transportation problems, with train tickets to certain destinations sold out within a minute of going on sale. But this whole thing is another matter entirely, not something I wish to discuss here right now.
What I do want to talk about is the fact that I had a week off from work and we were free to roam the city as it pleased us.

One of the things people do during this week of celebration and eating, is attend temple fairs. This is exactly what it sounds like: a fair held on the grounds of an old buddhist or daoist temple. There are a couple to choose from, so we started with the biggest one.
This temple fair was held on the grounds of the temple of earth, which turned out to be a rather large temple and park area. This large area did, however, not permit us to stroll around the temple grounds, as the fair was attended by a crowd of at least 2 million people. These people spend their time in one of two areas: the main temple area or the surroundings.
In the main temple area, the name of the game was stuffed animals. Stands upon stands occupied the area, each one adorned with more stuffed animals than I have ever imaged could exist at one time. Each stand would offer some kind of game, with the odds stacked very much against the player and if one won a significant amount of times, one could either win a small, middle, big or special prize, which corresponded to stuffed animals in sizes going from miniature to life sized. The participation was expensive and literally the only thing you could walk away with were stuffed animals. Different stands did not only differ in the game they offered, but most importantly, in the stuffed animals one could win, with some stands specializing in minions from "Despicable Me" and others in Mickey Mouse. Most people did not win, but some select ones we could see walking around with multiple plastic bags filled with every disney character imaginable.

The spectacle was fun to watch and also exhausting at the same time. Opposed to the massive commercial slaughter going on at the stands, the middle of the temple area was used for actual incense burning. This area was a lot populated by fewer people, mainly older people and the odd young girl singing karaoke.
The outlying area of the temple grounds was filled with even more people. Here the main commodity sought after was food and fake candied apples. Yes, they were indeed fake, painted styrofoam. Still, almost every visitor was carrying one of these wooden sticks with a bunch of fake candied fruit on it. There were some crafts sold, but mainly this area consisted of people. Getting around took a lot longer than one might think, although the masses of people carried you like water in a stream, albeit a somewhat congested one. We enjoyed the feeling of the area and some snacks, then called it a day.

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Toward the end of the week, we attended another temple fair, this one in a much more traditional location. It was set in a daoist temple, which was actually still used for worship. The temple grounds were surrounded by little rooms filled with wooden figures, representing a certain issue.

Once could then pray before these figures and offer donations and then would expect to be blessed on that topic. Issues included living longer, passing examinations and avoiding torture in hell (the wooden figures for this one included people with their heads cut off and being disemboweled). This temple fair was attended by fewer people, probably because there were no stuffed animals to win. Crafts were basically the only thing one could spend money on, in addition to some street performers.

One area of the temple was designated as a performance stage and the first act we witnessed was a group of young boys doing an assortment of tricks, including juggling hats and doing backflips. After that frivolous act, things got a lot more tense with the arrival of our next performer, a sword swallower. With great fanfare, he produced the object to be swallowed: a sword! He then proceeded to have everyone in attendance examine the sword, as if to convince us of its sharpness and realness. After he did some more kung-fu style exercises he did what he promised, he swallowed the sword to the hilt. It was quite neat. The next stunt involved swallowing a metal egg-looking object, although bigger than an egg. It was definitely too large to be swallowed by normal humans, but nonetheless he did so. After he showed us his mouth to be empty, he then went around with a hat to collect donations. I couldn't help but notice that his neck seemed to be tightly flexed during the entire time. After he had gotten all the money he could get, he finished his act by spitting the egg out, again with great fanfare. Fin.

The temple fair was much more quaint than the commercialized one we saw earlier in the week and many people had obviously come to the temple to worship. We stayed for a while but then bowed to the bitter cold and left for warmer quarters.

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Other events in this week included a trip to IKEA. We had gone for the reason to buy a knife. It turns out that you cannot find a vegetable cutting knife in China. We had visited many stores in vain in our pursuit. During one visit to a Chinese Walmart, I asked a clerk where they kept their cutting knives.
"Oh, we don't have those here," she told me.
"Well, where do people buy knives to cut vegetables then," I asked.
"We don't really do that anymore," the lady replied.
Apparently, cutting vegetables is something left behind like something from a dark past. How the knives disappeared but eating food with sticks is still alive and well, is a mystery to me.

In IKEA we found out that knives are actually not allowed to be sold. The spaces where knives used to be sold were now empty. It turns out that knives are considered too dangerous to be sold, as they are the only thing that can be bought and easily used as a weapon by anyone here. I guess we are cutting our food by karate chop until we return to the US. The IKEA trip had the added benefit that I was able to again eat my beloved Köttbullar, or swedish meatballs. It was a joy, although I remembered it tasting better in Germany.

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We spent the rest of the week exploring some hutongs, the old housing areas in Beijing which have now become very much a tourist attraction. There are some lake areas in Beijing were people go ice skating in the winter, located in the heart of a hutong area and around the drum and bell tower, prominent ancient architectural markers of the area. It was a nice afternoon excursion, but the cold weather made lingering impossible.

View into the inner courtyard of a Beijing Hutong

Finally, something that made this New Year's season truly feel like New Year, even though it was in February, was that fireworks were abundant. Starting Sunday night, Fireworks were going off everywhere. It was like a war zone walking to our apartment at night, accompanied by flashes of light and loud blasts both far and near. During the night the celebration never stopped, with fireworks being set off right in front of our building. And when I say fireworks, I'm not just talking about cute little things, I'm talking about industrial strength 4th of July style fireworks, set off by anybody, including little children. The rules in Beijing are strict, so fireworks can only be set off during New Year's and until February 15th. But this year was apparently a lot less rowdy than last year, since people are trying to be considerate and not make the pollution worse. I'd like to add that while I appreciate the effort, it didn't help. Pollution levels went through the roof every night as fireworks started to light up the sky. Happy Chinese New Year!

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Other silly photos from the week :) 

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