It’s officially the Chinese year of the Dragon which kicked off here last night extremely noisily with the whole city setting off fireworks and firecrackers. It’s all about chasing the bad spirits away and letting the good ones in. I think that tells us that good Chinese spirits are deaf – it has sounded pretty much exactly like those TV reports from warzones since yesterday afternoon. Here’s what it looked like last night:
Actually the fireworks were fun but it was particularly interesting to watch the randomness. People would seemingly just plop huge boxes of fireworks on their doorsteps and then light them right there.
We watched for some time as box after box was lit right by the entrance to our apartment. It was almost comical to watch taxis pull up right next to the box and let people out, cyclists and other drivers meandering right past it. We also saw a guy light a rocket/ mortar and then just hold it in his hand as it went off. I don’t believe he was hurt but I shudder to think how many people were injured across China. I suspect a LOT although, now that I come to think about it, there’s a good chance that the hospitals were closed, as everything else is.
The place is quite eerily quiet – very few cars, almost nobody on the street, all the shops boarded up. I read on some blog recently that it is how you might imagine post zombie apocalypse Shanghai, only with more fireworks, obviously.