Where the Wild Things Are

One day recently I was having a lunchtime conversation with a fellow teacher. He is the one most likely to go camping, hiking, or any similar kind of roughing it. Early on, his teaching the students how to start a fire with a bow drill earned him the nickname Mountain Man.

So Mountain Man and I were talking and we noted a shared observation—there isn’t much in the way of wildlife here in Shenyang. We see the resident magpies and an occasional sparrow, but beyond that there’s not much to see. M. M. even commented about the surprised thrill that filled him the other day when he saw a pair of migrating ducks. I made him realize how rare such sightings are. Wild animals are conspicuous by their absence.

That absence has a profound impact. Certainly people like M. M. and I are left deprived of the feeling that we get when we see some natural creature that is not under the sway of humans. We miss those glimpses into a world that we, as a dominant species, don’t control. But at least he and I know it’s out there. I had a sobering moment in class one day when the students were supposed to act like the characters in a Native American story. They didn't understand the wing flapping and high altitude soaring that I mimed for the character of the goose. When I asked why they didn’t know what animal I was imitating, one student told me that geese don’t fly. It hit me hard that their knowledge about geese was limited to the behavior of the large white birds that they have only seen in farmyards waddling and honking their way across the ground. Those geese are bred or clipped so they can’t fly.

It got me thinking. What wild animals could a young Chinese person reasonably expect to see? In Shenyang the answer is pretty much none. We don’t even see rats that should be proliferating given the amount of trash there is in the alleys, ditches, and waterways.

I wondered about elsewhere in China. Could a Yunnanese youngster be counted on to see yaks? Could a kid from Gansu take a gander at a gnu? or a gorilla? or even a gopher? Are there antelopes in Anhui? Bighorn sheep in Shanxi?

I know from Chinese news broadcasts that the Tibetan antelope is a special animal and great care was taken during the construction of the new railroad to Lhasa to protect the migration routes of this endangered herbivore. I’ve seen special reports on the volunteers who stop the traffic on the roads in Tibet so that the herds can cross safely.

I also know that lions and tigers are considered important creatures in China. But most of that comes from the myths and folktales that I’ve read and heard, the presence of the tiger in the Chinese zodiac, and the stone lions I see standing guard outside restaurants, banks, and even our apartment.

Of course there’s the panda. That’s practically the symbol of China. I visited Chengdu and the giant panda breeding center there. I know there are also reserves in other parts of Sichuan where the pandas live in the wild.

But all that seems like destination wildlife. The humdrum, everyday kind of wildlife—great blue herons, raccoons, deer, woodpeckers, squirrels—that you can see in almost any American suburb or the slightly more unusual—hawks, coyotes, otters, owls, opossums, muskrats, armadillos—don’t seem to exist here.

In order to see wild animals Chinese students need to do what ours did a couple of Saturdays ago. They need to go on a field trip to a zoo. I know that zoo animals aren’t wild animals, but they’re related to the ones that live in the wild and at least look like their wild cousins.

Here in Shenyang we live close to Qipanshan (which I only recently learned means Chessboard Mountain), and Qipanshan is home to the Shenyang Wild Animal Forest Park. Yes, if you google the forest park you will encounter articles from spring 2010 when, according to some reports, eleven Siberian tigers died there after suffering from malnutrition, neglect, and the extreme cold of Shenyang’s winter. You may even see that some claim the tigers were purposely let die so that their organs and bones could be sold on the black market. Of course it could be that the dead tigers really came from the Bingchuan Zoo, which might be totally separate from the Shenyang Wild Animal Forest Park.

So the tigers at the zoo we took our students to may not be the survivors of that recent tiger tragedy. They might have inhabited the Wild Animal Area where busloads of visitors drive past and photograph them in their semi-spacious enclosures. Or they might be the four white tigers that live in typical concrete-floored, moat-surrounded, and fake rock mountain-backed, cells. They may never have known anything about the fate of the other eleven.

Visitors to the Shenyang Wild Animal Forest Park could not buy live chickens to toss to the tigers like the visitors to Dalian’s zoo can. Visitors to the Dalian zoo can also buy live animals (mostly chickens but some rabbits) to toss to the hyenas. I know because some of my fellow teachers who went to Dalian for our colleague’s wedding last month visited the zoo there and saw the feeding going on. No, at the Shenyang Wild Animal Forest Park you can only buy fruit to toss to the bears and monkeys. Both of those “wild animals” are quite adept at fielding and hanging onto apples and pears no matter how bad the aim of the visitor doing the tossing.

Our students didn’t feed the animals. They were there with the knowledge that their science class was going to be starting an ecology unit and somehow what they saw at the zoo would relate. So they watched the tigers from the bus. They watched the other people feeding the bears and monkeys. They watched the 12:30 trained sea lion act in which two sea lions did tricks for fish rewards. And, besides magpies and sparrows, this may be the only wild animals they see for a long time.

They still might be surprised that geese can fly.

Love Zhonguo Style*

There’s nothing like a wedding to trigger thoughts of love and romance. I was smitten by such recently when I went to a colleague’s wedding in a coastal city south of Shenyang.

My co-worker was marrying a Chinese woman and most of us at school were invited down to Dalian to attend. I was looking forward to sharing the moment with them and learning more about China while I was at it.

The trip had been prefaced by a number of events that are part of the modern Chinese wedding ritual. I say modern, but there are holdovers from the traditional approach to matrimony embedded in the current ceremony. Keep in mind that I do not have first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to marry in China. My observations are based on the stories I’ve heard and the glimpses I’ve gained as a bystander looking on.

In China once a couple decides that they’re going to tie the knot the first step is get the families’ blessing. In the case of a westerner marrying a Chinese woman, I guess only one family’s blessing need be sought. From what I hear the meeting of the groom-to-be with the bride-to-be’s family is combination grilling and drinking game. The man gets peppered with questions about his background, prospects, intentions, and general fitness to be in the courting role. While this is going on there is a simultaneous series of “gambais” which are the Chinese equivalent of bottoms up. This is done with the traditional Chinese liquor, baijiu.

After the successful suitor sobers up he and his intended begin on several steps in the wedding planning. One is the choice of an auspicious date. To do this various birthdates and numbers get mixed together and tumbled around until the most fortuitous one emerges. Nowadays computers provide a useful tool in crunching the bits of data that traditionally priests and fortunetellers were called upon to consider in their orb-gazing activities. Astrological and zodiacal information is the most critical in all this, but the fact that the Chinese use both the western and eastern/lunar calendars creates new wrinkles in these times.

Besides star-gazing, engaged couples also spend a lot of the pre-wedding time taking care of their wedding photo album’s demands. In China photographers cater to couples’ desire to have portraits taken in exotic locales while they are garbed in elaborate outfits. Most of the photo shoots take place in public places. Wherever there is a waterfall, temple, fancy building, colorful streetscape, or an in-any-way interesting backdrop, teams of photographers and couples with their respective assistants congregate and pose. The outfits range from Gone with the Wind vintage looks to 1950s Hollywood styles. Jackie and I live near a new building project called Tahiti. There we often see costumed couples posing by the life-size statues of an elephant family.

Once the wedding day arrives there are other customs and traditions to observe. Today we woke up to the sounds of firecrackers going off in front of an apartment block behind ours. When we went to the window to investigate we saw a begowned bride and suited groom standing in front of an arch of red balloons. There they handed some kind of gifts to the two pairs of parents waiting there. After some discussion all moved inside and proceeded to the top floor apartment. Later the couple emerged and piled into their decorated car and departed.

My colleague who got married in Dalian explained that, in his case, the wedding morning was spent performing symbolic acts demonstrating the changing family relationships and the hope that the new couple will have a fruitful union. First the groom must request admission to his in-laws home for himself and his accompanying family retinue. This meant that my friend had to negotiate and pay a price for entering the home. Once inside he had to serve tea to his new in-laws (they later served tea to him and his family). He also had to knock on his fiancé’s door and ask permission to enter from the bridesmaids assembled inside. There he found his bride in her gown but minus her shoes. He had to search for the new shoes, find them, and put them on her feet before leading her in her first steps.

Somewhere in this process the groom negotiated a payment from the father-in-law that coincidentally equaled the amount the groom had paid earlier. Then the groom and bride go to their new lodgings which had a door covered in red, the ever present color of good luck and fortune here in China. Inside they encounter a young boy who represents the promise of a son for the new couple. This is all before the actual wedding ceremony which takes place at a hotel or restaurant.

In Dalian our first glimpse of all the activities came at the restaurant (which was in a hotel). We were surprised to find that the dress code was much more relaxed than what we were used to. Many of the attendees were in jeans and t-shirts. The MC, a local TV personality, was in jeans and a striped t-shirt. After we signed the guest book and deposited our red envelopes that contained the traditional wedding gift cash, we went to our seats and waited. We were entertained by a slide show featuring the bride and groom together and apart, in shots taken recently and in the past.

The ceremony began with spotlights moving across the room. Other lighting effects gave the impression of green foliage flickering along the walls. The groomsmen and bridesmaids formed a receiving line with the groom at one end waiting for the bride. She made her entrance by descending a spiral staircase. There was very little in the way of vows in the ceremony, but the bride and groom performed symbolic acts—exchanging rings, lighting candles, pouring a wine cascade over a pyramid of glasses, and cutting cake. They also came to each table and toasted the guests with shots of baijiu, bringing the closure to a ceremonial event that began and ended with gambais.

*I tried to use my skills with Audacity to create a new version of the Love American Style theme song. My version was Love Zhonguo Style (“truer than the hong and huang-ang-ang,” “ for ni and wo”). But my skills were not up to my standards and you’ll just have to settle for the original here.

Chinese characteristics

“Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is a phrase that is frequently used to explain or identify the uniqueness of the Chinese economy. After traveling in different parts of China this summer, I wonder what Chinese characteristics are. Maybe that’s the point of the phrase—it’s open to multiple definitions and changing interpretations. I certainly felt that my travel, while rich and instructional, did more to confuse than to enlighten about Chinese characteristics.

I think the confusion begins with China’s geography. It’s a huge country that includes wet places and dry places, low places and high places, hot places and cold places, flat places and vertiginous places, barren places and fertile places. And I think Jackie and I saw a little bit of all these extremes when we traveled.

We began in the sea-level cities of east-central Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces and climbed to the over-3000-meter heights of Yunnan Province before descending to the below-sea-level depths of Xinjiang Province.

We also found ourselves sweating through dense steamy bamboo groves in some places and then searching for patches of shade in desolate deserts elsewhere.

We listened to a woman point out all the types of fruits and vegetables growing in the fields around the Li River where they have three growing seasons each year. This came after we cycled through rocky gorges where the only thing growing was sparse scrub that goats had a hard time surviving on.

So, on a geographic level, saying “Chinese characteristics” means including nearly every known landform and ecosystem; not very helpful when it comes to specificity.

If I turn to the Chinese people and try to identify what is meant by “Chinese characteristics” on a human, ethnic level, I find the same confusion that springs from great difference and variety. Chinese people are tall and short, dark and fair, angular and voluptuous. They are scantily-clad hotties and burkha-obscured mysteries. They speak Chinese in its variations from Beijing-ese to Yunnan-ese and every –ese in between. They are everything from college-educated scholars, fine artists, and athletes to barely literate underclass members.

Much is made of the fact that most Chinese people are Han Chinese. But even more is made of the many ethnic groups. The Lonely Planet guide to China trumpets Yunnan as a destination because of its ethnic diversity. It says there the traveler gets “an extraordinary glimpse into China’s mixed salad of humanity.” One museum in Xinjiang had a whole floor devoted to an exhibit of the dozen or so ethnic groups that call the province their home. Of course this could be cynically regarded as a propaganda ploy in that province racked with ethnic violence.

My time and experiences all over China this summer got me no closer to understanding what is meant by “Chinese characteristics” in the Chinese people.

Of course every traveler needs food to fuel them as they take in the sights and human encounters along their journey. Jackie and I are no different. Well, maybe Jackie needs a little more steady supply of nourishment (to keep her blood sugar balanced) than I do. And maybe she shies away from some dishes (eel heads, grilled cartilage, and “old donkey” are acquired tastes that she is almost certain not to acquire) more than I do. So we had ample opportunity to find out what Chinese culinary characteristics are. I even had a copy of The Last Chinese Chef to supplement the knowledge gleaned from first-hand experience.

After seven weeks of responding to the question, “What should we eat tonight?” with the answer, “Chinese.” I don’t think I’m any closer to knowing what that really means. Besides the more questionable dishes mentioned above, “Chinese characteristics” at the dinner table could mean rice or noodles, bland or spicy, fish or meat, stir fried, steamed, boiled, or grilled. Even chopsticks, those devilish implements considered automatic at every Chinese meal, are not used in traditional Uighur dining. Fingers are good enough for them.

I didn’t go on vacation in a quest to find the answer to the question, “What are Chinese characteristics?” I did think I’d understand more about China after seeing so much of it. What stands out to me now is not how much more I understand but how much more there is to try to understand. The chief Chinese characteristic I have identified is the great variety that is meant by the word “Chinese”.

individualism and conformity

Jackie and I try to take a walk after school every day. We spend an hour or so reconnecting and exchanging the news of the day. We also pick up last minute groceries for our dinner. It’s quality time.

Last week our conversation drifted onto a topic that I thought would make an excellent subject for a blog posting. It’s a bit hard to synthesize it into a single sentence, but what we mulled over was the contradiction we find between the U.S. and China and their respective attitudes and practices vis-a-vis individualism and conformity.

Most of you, my readers, (that means Mom plus an unknown quantity) are Americans and therefore very familiar with the U.S. ethos (mythos?) of rugged individualism. We remember Old Hickory and the Rail Splitter, frontiersmen who could clear the land, build a cabin, plant the crops, and raise a family all while fending off the depredations of assorted hostile Indians, bad men, and wild animals. They came back to Washington unbeholden to any man or interest group and led us through formative stages in our national development. Others followed: Teddy Roosevelt charged from San Juan Hill to the White House. Kennedy went from the PT-109 to the same place. Even Ronnie, “The Great Communicator”, tamed the wild beasts of Hollywood before embarking on his political career. After making it to the White House his favored photo op was in Stetson and jeans while roughing it at Rancho Reagan.

Americans pride themselves in can-do and pulling themselves up from their own bootstraps. No one wants a handout. The government is best that governs least. And watch out for Big Brother.

China, on the other hand, is a communist country. It’s a one-party state in which the collective good is paramount and the mantra from the powers above is “harmony”.

Here even the ancient teachings of Confucianism say that the best society is based on individuals subordinating themselves to their position in society. This is the place where numberless, nameless, faceless, interchangeable parts of the population built the Great Wall and labored through the Great Leap Forward. The modern proletariat is as much a collection of anonymous beings as the famous terra cotta warriors of Xi’an. That’s what China is famous for.

So why do Americans, the lovers of the gunslinger and the misunderstood Rambo, people who take the law into their own hands to do what must be done, value being law-abiding so much? Why do Americans wait in lines, take their turns, drive as if obeying the rules of the road is a good idea, and accept that the price posted is the price they should pay?

And why do the Chinese work so hard to find ways to skirt the law? Why in China is a thing like a queue a quaint notion, why do people here think that it’s okay to head straight to the counter of a bank or post office, a ticket window or hospital as if their needs outweighed those of anyone foolish enough to be waiting their turn, why is doing business a matter of what you can finagle, and why is driving a crazy choreography of vehicles going the right way and the wrong way, never yielding until inspired by some arbitrary notion, speeding up or slowing down (even stopping dead in the middle of traffic) based on the logic of some lunar calendar known only to themselves?

When Jackie and I walk we can turn right or left after leaving campus. So approximately 50% of the time we end up turning toward our local commercial district. This “district” includes traditional stores and restaurants. It also includes many sidewalk vendors. It’s the “sidewalk” part of the commerce that I want to describe.  The road in front of school is Junong Lu. Junong Lu has nice sidewalks along its length. Alongside the sidewalks there is stretch of land that is mostly open, dotted here and there with some small trees. The vendors set up by staking out a patch of sidewalk and covering it with their vegetables, dvds, packages of underwear and socks, the machine that cranks out the strange puffed curls of dough, etc. This means that the pedestrians, whether they are in a shopping frame of mind or not, must walk on the street. Of course the street is full of every wheeled conveyance known to man.  Some of which are pulling U-turns, entering or exiting, going with the flow or against it, or even stopping to do some shopping. All of them are making some sort of noise. That could be their normal running noise, which, coming from the three-wheeled trucks and motorized tricycles, is deafening. Other common noises include the constant honking that means “I’m here” on Chinese streets. I’m not sure if the “better watch out for me” is implied or not. The only exception to all this cacophony-causing commotion is the silence of the electric bikes and scooters. They sneak up on you unannounced and only make their presence known when you catch them in you peripheral vision just before they run into you or nearly so.

Where is the harmony in all this? Where is the deferring of one’s selfish desires to the common good? How can so much unbridled individualism be the bread and butter of the communist workers’ paradise? I guess it’s in the same place that Americans put their rugged individualism when they’re sitting waiting for their number to be called at the DMV, or when they’ve bought the biggest SUV on the lot even though it’s only going to be used on trips to the supermarket, or when they vote for neighborhood covenants so that their development will have a consistent, predictable look.

Somehow both societies exist with contradictions. Since I can’t explain them in my own culture, darned if I’m going to figure it out here in China.

Chinese Politics

Jackie and I went to Shanghai with Annie and Steve and had a spectacularly good time. The weather, sightseeing, dining, and company were all top notch. For some reason though, the topic for this blog that jumped into my head is politics. Let me explain.

Shanghai is the center of a lot of Chinese political history, especially modern political history. The biggest thing in modern Chinese politics is the Communist Party and it had its first congress in Shanghai in 1921. Jackie and I went to the building in Xintiandi where the congress was begun. (The French didn’t like it and chased the founders of the Chinese Communist Party out of Shanghai. The congress concluded on a boat in South Lake.)

Even before the communists Shanghai had been a center of political history in China. It’s where the foreign devils established their toeholds in China as the dynastic leadership was weakening and Western influence was strengthening. The British started things off in 1842 after the First Opium War. They built a trading port where a sleepy little village was. The French and Japanese followed. Other nations (including the U.S. and Italy) had a hand in creating what was called the International Settlement. Their influence in Chinese development can easily be seen in the top tourist spots of the Bund and the French Concession. This was a city that was essentially an international reserve taken by force by foreign governments for their merchants. The Chinese were second-class citizens in their own land here.

The famous "no dogs or Chinese" sign from Huangpu Park

This was the area where nationalist champions found their country’s inability to maintain sovereignty in the face of foreign interference most glaring, maybe because of that, home-grown heroes popped up here and squared off. Jackie and I had dinner in a restaurant that had been the home of the Soong family. In that family they said, “One married for money, one married for China, and one married for power.” The oldest sister married the richest man in China. The second sister married Dr. Sun Yat Sen. The youngest sister married Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek.

I’ve already mentioned the CPC was founded in Shanghai. Chiang led the resistance to the communists and actually allied himself with the foreign powers and Chinese business interests in Shanghai as he and the KMT fought the civil war against the CPC. World War II interfered and the Japanese came back to control Shanghai. After the war the CPC liberated the city from the KMT and began their rule of Shanghai and China.

Shanghai’s development and history as a mercantile center in China had left it with an advertising industry that lingers on the original and replica posters and cards of the Shanghai girls. These are the images of coy and demure Asian lovelies used to sell everything from medicines and cigarettes to machinery including, yes, bicycles.

This same industry was put to a more explicitly political use after the communist victory in 1949. We used Steve’s Fodor guidebook to get close to the Propaganda Poster Art Centre, but we needed the help of some friendly and attentive gate guards at the entrance to an apartment complex to actually find the center. They saw us wandering and counting down house numbers and waved us over. At the entrance they handed us a card that had a small map and a red dotted line showing the way to the place. As we got in the elevator and headed down to the basement Steve and Jackie wondered what sort of adventure we were getting ourselves into.

It turned out to be a well-arranged collection of posters that some local had held on to and were now on display. They had nice chronological explanations of the times and events that influenced the posters. The text on the posters was translated and I assume they are good translations. They did a good business in reproductions and I’m sure that is what keeps the center afloat. I almost bought a copy of a Korean War vintage poster. Ultimately I decided it would be more offensive than interesting to my Korean War vet. Dad and passed. I did buy the exhibition catalog and the pictures here come from it.

Under communist rule Shanghai has continued to be a beacon of modernity for China to show to the world (and to the Chinese; there are a ton of Chinese tourists in Shanghai. We found ourselves cheek to jowl with them in the old town during the Qingming festival. There were also plenty of Chinese tourists on the Bund, called Waitan in Chinese, taking the obligatory pose with the Oriental Pearl tower in the background.)

Politically it seems to be a bit more wide open than what I’ve seen in Shenyang. We went to the Moganshan art district and found extensive arrays of graffiti art on the walls and buildings and numerous galleries that displayed works that were openly critical of, or at least irreverent toward, the Chinese government. We later took a bike ride and one of our guides complained loudly about the Chinese government and announced his intention to emigrate to Australia as soon as he had enough money and English-speaking proficiency.

I wonder if Shanghai provides enough of an outlet for a manageable amount of dissent as well as a receptacle for a significant amount of income to make it a worth the government’s while to make some allowances for the fact that it’s a place where politics bubbles and boils blatantly.

Celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day with Russians in China

This is about as far from a China-centric topic as you can get.

As March 17^th approached it seemed like a necessary time for a celebration. After some discussion (and the refusal of our boss to agree to start school late on Friday) we decided to look into a Friday, March 18^th belated St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl downtown. This was in recollection of a similar event held on Halloween. That had been widely seen as a huge success and an introduction for many into the nightlife of Shenyang.

The deal was made and about 25 of us booked our spots.

My plan was to go into town with some colleagues and check in to a hotel. Jackie didn’t want to go on the pub crawl, but she did want to do some things downtown. As it turned out we dropped her off at Cool Cuts hair salon on our way to the hotel. She got her hair cut while a few of us unwound in the lobby bar of the Sheraton. We didn’t stay at the Sheraton, but our hotel is right behind it so this was a nice place to wait. Three young women played soothing classical music as we baptized ourselves with the first of the night’s libations.

It started to rain while we relaxed. Jackie called to say that the rain had made catching a cab much more difficult and she’d meet us at the restaurant for dinner. ‘Nuff said. We ambled over and settled into a booth. Jackie arrived soon after and we fueled up. She said she’d stay in the hotel and maybe go next door for a massage at the traditional medicine center.

Three of us went back to the Sheraton thinking that we’d have our best luck catching a cab there. We were wrong. After three or four taxis told us they wouldn’t take us to the pub crawl’s starting place, we crossed the street and hoped for better luck on the north-bound side. We quickly got the attention of a cabbie who, when he learned that Lenore’s was near the U.S. Consulate, agreed to take us. We were there by 8:30.

Lenore’s was a small place full of more Anglos than I had ever seen in one place in Shenyang. Most did a good job in the wearin’ ‘o the green and I thought things looked very authentic, especially when I spied the cases of Guinness piled up by the door. We paid 100rmb to Casey, the event organizer, and he gave us coupons for free drinks. Lenore’s was pouring free vodka drinks tonight. I got myself a vodka and tonic and then joined others from school in an awkward clump in the press of bodies. We made small talk and compared green outfits. There were drawings for door prizes, one of which someone from our group won.

By the time the buses were ready to take us on the next leg of the crawl, we had figured out that there were basically three groups involved. In addition to the folks from our school there were about 20 young English men and women and about another 20 young Russians. Yes, as I discovered when I complimented the most thoroughly Kelly green bedecked of the lasses in Lenore’s on the authenticity of her outfit (up to the oversized leprechaun hat perched on her head), nearly a third of our fellow celebrants were about as Irish as Vladimir Putin, literally. They were Russians from who knows where in a place as far removed from the Emerald Isle as you can get. They liked to drink and sing and dance though and that served them well. Even if the only song of theirs that any of us recognized was the Russian version of the theme music to Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers. Bizarre.

I was in the bus shared with the English youths. They sang too; over and over and over. Their song was the same thing sung over and over and over. It went like this, “Casey, Casey, Casey is our captain. A ship needs and anchor and Casey is a wanker.” (Then substitute in someone else’s name for the second through umpteenth verses.) Apparently the person named is supposed to chug a beer while the group is serenading them. When the bottle of Jose Cuervo started around the singers took a break. The next thing we knew we were unloading on “Bar Street”. Bar Street has that name because it is a street of, you guessed it, bars. Our official destination was Giggles, but if we wanted to drop in at The Shamrock or The Buddha Bar or any of the couple other places, we could. I had already planned a trip to The Shamrock for a rendezvous with Arthur.

We hung out at Giggles a respectable amount of time, mostly because it took Casey that long to distribute the free drink tickets. While there we mingled and followed the encouragement of the Russian girls to visit the upstairs where they were singing and dancing.

But a real pint waited next door, so most of the SPA crew relocated to The Shamrock where we met Kevin the proprietor and passed some time in pleasant conversation.

Too soon the call went out for us to return to the bus and head off for our last stop. The departure from The Shamrock was assuaged by the knowledge that pizza awaited at The Green Mile. The pizza wasn’t waiting for us when we arrived, but free drinks were so no one complained. Once the pizza appeared it was hot and gooey and plentiful. Each new pie was placed somewhere (on the bar, on a table,…) and created a momentary migration of patrons from their private corners to the feeding ground where they’d snatch up hot slices and juggle them between hands as they made their way back to their tables. Some generous souls would grab two or three slices and bring the extra to their waiting fellows. This frequently resulted in the production of long strings of molten cheese dangling from pizza slices as their bearers raced to get the pizza back to their table before the droopy stalactites reached the floor.

Eventually some people decided that they had to stop the revelry and find a taxi and begin the long ride home. A group of us who booked in-town hotel rooms to avoid that chore agreed to close the night out with a KTV adventure.

I’ve written about KTV before so I won’t bore you with a repetition. One novelty was the participation of our newest colleague and her boyfriend. Ms. Wang is SPA’s Chinese teacher, although judging from her singing ability and interest she could just as easily be a music teacher.

Now that I’ve given you all that information I can ask you a question inspired by the old riddle—Buses, Pizzas, Russians in Green Hats: How many celebrated St. Pat’s?

Fireworks

If you were with me on Thursday night Feb. 17 you would have no doubts why this blog has the topic it has. On that night, starting at 6:00 and lasting a thunderous 10 minutes the potholed surface of SPA's incomplete sports field was the setting for our owner's pyrotechnic salute to the Lantern Festival. The air boomed and the night sky was illuminated by what would be thousands of dollars worth of fireworks in the U.S. I tried to insert a sample in a video at the end of the blog, but could only link to it. As a palliative here's a still shot showing the front our our comprehensive building with fireworks over the "field" behind.

This was the most up close and personal Jackie and I have been to Chinese fireworks. We were literally right under their glittering canopy. In case you might worry that this was a dangerous perspective I want to assure you that extensive safety precautions were in effect. Several orange traffic cones were lined up at the top of the steps leading to the field, an expansive 20 yards away from the nearest boxes of fireworks waiting for ignition. This line demarcated the closest point that the young children attending our third Winter Camp could approach. They were minors after all, and we were in loco parentis. And just like a couple of loco parents we crossed the traffic cone line to get a better view. Before you jump to the conclusion that we were being irresponsible, you should know that the full battery of our firefighting materiel was within easy reach of our location—we stood next to the three fire extinguishers that had been carried out to the field. Also, the school's employees who were prepared and equipped to deal with any explosive emergency—four of the maintenance guys with shovels at the ready—were just a few feet away. How could we be any safer?

So, as the Chinese men took turns puffing on a cigarette and dashing to press it against the fuses sticking out of the fireworks boxes, we watched and “ohhhed” and “ahhhed”. I must be getting old because the grand finale's percussion of thousands of firecrackers going off in rapid fire caused me to cover my ears with my hands. And then it was over, for us. The rest of the neighborhood stayed at it for hours. There were even fireworks the next day, but none of them approached the intensity of that night.

Apparently fireworks usher the New Year celebration in and out. The party began on Feb. 2^nd when there was the new moon that inaugurated the festival (also called Spring Festival). Thursday's wrap-up was marked by the first full moon of the new year. There are regulations on where and when fireworks can be set off, but as far as I can tell the regulations aren't much enforced. Certainly during the New Year time fireworks are everywhere. A Chinese staffer at school said that technically they're illegal at other times of the year, but people set them off for weddings, birthdays, to mark the opening of a new business, and for other significant events. We've been hearing fireworks regularly since we arrived in Shenyang. One night we watched and marveled at a great show launched to the north of us and visible from our apartment window. I took some pictures of that one.

Jackie and I compared the Chinese love of fireworks with the Nicaraguans frequent use of “bombas” and “cohetes”. We've decided that the Chinese win out in terms of caliber and quality of their fireworks. The Nicaraguans hold an edge in the category of home-grown incendiaries as this photo from one of my trips to Ometepe indicates.

(Picture to come. I have to dig up up off of my external hard drive.)

In China the fireworks are factory made. (Not having been to a Chinese fireworks factory, I can't comment on the nature of them, but the packaging of the fireworks suggests that the factories are apparently mainstream businesses.) Then the goods get sold at roadside stands much like the ones I'm familiar with from the Suquamish Indian reservation near Bainbridge. The stands went up a week or ten days before New Year's Eve. They got steady business from people driving, walking, and bicycling up. Once the stands opened there was a noticeable increase in extemporaneous fireworks shows. I guess people had to sample their wares in order to decide which items were most suited to their tastes.

(note the white painted tree)

Jackie and I were not here for the actual New Year's display. We left for the U.S. Before that. We did hear from Annie Nord though that the fireworks in Shenyang caused the destruction of a hotel. This news was confirmed by many sources and the photos below are from that event. Some of our colleagues here at SPA were in town on the 2^nd and couldn't see the burning hotel because the smoke from the constant and continual discharge of fireworks around them obscured everything beyond the immediate foreground. News reports from other Chinese cities from this year and past indicate that loss of property and life is regular result of New Year's conflagrations.

Our school's fireworks display went off safely. No harm was done to any person or thing that I could discern. We all walked away happy and spent the rest of the night serenaded by the rhythms of gunpowder celebrations. As we drifted off to sleep our apartment's dark was intermittently lifted by the dim flares and flashes of explosions bursting over the roof tops and on the horizon.

(Sorry, I know I promised video of our fireworks. I couldn't get a copy to imbed here. Instead I've included a link to our school's website where you can see the video.)

http://www.sypac.org/

I'll close with a couple of scenes from the day after. As with any party, this one left the typical aftermath for time and the clean-up crew to deal with.