hello readers! i know it has felt like an eternity for you, eagerly checking my blog in the hope that you could once again bask in the warm glow of my posts. but, to be fair, i did warn you that i would not be updating during the week of chunjie vacation. i know i make it look easy, but sometimes the neverending demands of my blog audience get to be too much for me, and i must retire to the solace of blogless existence. but now i'm back in action.
all week i've been thinking about the post i wanted to do about chunjie, and now i'm ready to write about it. actually it probably would have been better to write about it earlier, because its been a long week and last saturday has become pretty blurred in my memory. but whatever. Chunjie, the spring holiday, also known as Chinese New Year, is officially my new favorite holiday. i had sort of been looking for a new favorite holiday since deciding that my old favorite, halloween, no longer bears the same attractive quality it did when i would accumulate massive amounts of candy. sure, dressing up is still fun, but a favorite holiday needs more than that. Chunjie, i have decided, is like a mix of new years and the fourth of july, but with more. it's kind of hard to explain. but just imagine if everyone in your country was given their own fireworks without any restriction, and allowed to set them off wherever they wanted. and imagine this focused into one night, culminating at around 12 at night. at that time, its like the world is exploding in fireworks. the sky is filled with bursts of all different colors, and sparks fly through the streets. it is also incredibly loud and smoky, but you hardly notice it because its just about the most exciting moment ever. and literally everyone is celebrating. outside of every restaurant, guys run around setting off fireworks, sparklers, and firecrackers, and they wave and smile and cheer when they see you.
and then after that come the dumplings. i think in our particular chunjie celebration there was some miscommunication, because when we all came inside after the fireworks, there was kind of a dearth of dumplings. this has left me fixated on dumplings ever since, and i can't seem to get enough of them. but anyway, we're just imagining what it should be like. so yeah, all the dumplings you could ever want to eat, freshly baoed and steaming. and its just at the start of your week's vacation, not like new year's when you know you've got a day to get rid of that vicious hangover and then you're back at work. so you drink and celebrate and cheer and stay out all night. sounds pretty cool, huh?
the only annoying thing is that for the rest of the week, people are continually setting off firecrackers. so every night when you try to go to sleep, you are greeted by a barrage of bangs and cracks that really make it difficult to fall asleep. and then, starting at around 8 in the morning, they start up again. the only solution is to stay out late drinking every night, and hope that your drunken stupor keeps you dead to the noises of the world until you're ready to wake up in the morning (afternoon).