Spring Festival

Spring Festival is the biggest holiday in China. It celebrates the beginning of the Lunar New Year. It usually takes place in January or February, and this time around the festival marked the beginning of the year of the Monkey. Most employees get a week off work for the festival, and this sparks the worlds largest annual mass migration, as hundreds of millions of Chinese go back to their home-place to celebrate with their families. Home, shops and businesses are festooned with red lanterns and festival greetings painted on red paper.

Food and fireworks are the hallmarks of the spring festival. It is traditional to prepare more food for the family than could possibly be eaten (a bit like our Christmas). According to myth, fireworks & firecrackers are set off to scare away a fiercesome dragon, so the Chinese take to this challenge with gusto. During the week, fire crackers are to be heard constantly, day and night, only dying down in the small hours, and starting up again in the morning. I did not see many fireworks in Beijing as they are prohibited in many areas because of the number of wooden building. But in Dalian there was a major fireworks display put on by the city every night. Each community (apartment block, street etc) would also put on displays. Looking out of my apartment window, I would see 5-10 different displays each night. On the last night of the festival, there seemed to be fireworks constantly going off everywhere in the city. It really was an awesome sight.

Another spring festival tradition is the temple fair. The big temples put on imperial age processions and shows of traditional dancing. But best of all are the dancing Tigers (or lions ?). These are people dressed in tiger costume, dancing, jumping around, and performing acrobatics. You are watching them for a few seconds before you realize that there are TWO people in each Tiger, one person at each end, a bit like the pantomime donkey, but orders of magnitude more graceful. The movements are so fluid and synchronized that the tiger behaves as a single entity. The acrobatics and tricks are amazing when you consider the coordination required.

On the first morning after the spring festival, I was awoken by the roar of MORE firecrackers, but this time far more intense than ever before, I guess they authorities wanted to make sure everyone was awake for the first day back to work.

Only three days after end of the spring festival, there is an evening called the Lantern festival. The Lantern festival is marked by, guess what? More fireworks. The excesses of spring festival had not dampened the chinese enthusiasm for gunpowder one bit. Firecrackers and fireworks were ignited with as much gusto as before. Walking down the street was particularly hazardous, as long strings of fire crackers were being thrown all over the pavement. The biggest danger was not the sparks, but the noise. A big firecracker going off beside you would leave your ears ringing for quite a while.