Last night was probably one of the funnest nights I have ever had...truly! Ever since we adopted Leah in February of 2003 I have wanted to be in China for a New Year's celebration. Leah's adoption was right after the new year started so the decorations were still up and I could see how beautiful everything was but I just wanted to experience it for myself. Well, last night was our chance!
The local cafe that we eat breakfast in every Sunday is run by an American who is also from Shanghai so the restaurant hosted a special CNY eve dinner for anyone who wanted to come, including his family. The dinner consisted of 15 courses!! OK, admittedly, we had no idea it was going to be that much food or take that long for dinner...but it's a good thing because knowing us we would have opted not to go had we known and would have missed out on a really great time! We arrived at 5:30 and everyone got to sit at their tables and make dumplings for their family. Then the food started arriving, very Chinese style, meaning that it takes forever for each course to come out but the nice thing is no one cares if the kids run around in the restaurant and play while waiting. The food was great and the restaurant did such a nice job. It was all served family style and the dishes were very similar to what a Chinese family would eat for their big New Year's Eve meal (think Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas Day dinner for us).
Between courses, their were lots of activities for the kids including sparklers, then fireworks, then a bull pinata with loads of candy in it. It was really cute because their were 25 kids there and they each got their number to line up. All the kids had gone through and "beaten" on the bull and we were down to the last little girl, #25, who had waited so patiently for her turn. She was no more than 3 years old and all of 2 feet tall - she stood up to that pinata and gave it two good whacks and all the candy came gushing out! It was too funny after all these big kids had tried, a little tike comes along and shows them how it is done! The evening was such a great time and we really enjoyed it. We finished everything up at about 9:30, bundled the girls back up and started walking home. On the way home everywhere around us we could see and hear fireworks going off.
Now, the fun really was starting! It is actually hard for me to even put into words what the next couple of hours were like! We got home around 10 with Kate asleep in the stroller and decided to do our big fireworks that we bought. Now, I just have to put things in perspective a bit. Pretty much every shopping complex around town has a big tent set up where you can buy fireworks. Now I'm not talking about black cats and roman candles, I'm talking about the stuff that the guys on the barges on the Mississippi River for the Dubuque show shoot off. We could buy a single box of 100 "ariel" cannons that have the huge explosion and beautiful lights that would be the staple of any city's fireworks show! And any random Joe (or Wang) in China can buy these and set them off at the base of their 30 story apartment building! AMAZING!!! Now remember that their are 20 million people in Shanghai that have access to these kinds of fireworks and feel a cultural obligation to blast in the New Year with explosives.
Not to be outdone, we had to shoot off fireworks, too but we opted for the box of 50 instead. The girls and I stood on our balcony while John lit the big box then ran. It was so loud and beautiful to see huge fireworks literally right above your head! We did this at about 11pm. Then went inside and got the girls to bed and waited for the big fun at midnight to start. And, oh my goodness, at midnight did the show ever begin! First of all, we live in Pudong a pretty good distance from downtown Shanghai so I can only imagine what that must have looked like but you could hear blasts and booms coming from everywhere. It truly sounded like what a city under siege must sound like.
One other thing, we live in a villa/house in a neighborhood of houses but it is not in an "expat" community, as most of our neighbors are Chinese. So the video that I am attaching here is what our neighborhood and surrounding area sounded and looked like at midnight from the 2nd story balcony on our house! There were two houses on the street one over from us where Chinese families live and their fireworks were amazing! The best I have ever seen in my life! Plus in the distance you can see all the apartments where families were blasting off fireworks. It was so loud and remarkably, all the girls slept right through it! The full fury of fireworks went on until about 12:45 and then things settled down a bit.
Here are a couple of video clips that I took on my camera so you could maybe get a sense of what it sounded and looked like here. All that noise in the background is just tons of fireworks going off all over the city.
Fireworks at the apartments a couple of blocks away:
This is probably my favorite video clip though: Fireworks that the restaurant set off. What I love most is that all of the people AND children are standing only about 15 feet from this large box of explosives! :) But as you can hear from the squeals of delight - everyone is enjoying them!
So there you have it - our family's first Chinese New Year celebration and all it entailed! We hope you have a blessed Year of the Bull!
