jvd213inBeijing2008

February 8, 2008: 10:50 am

Chinese phrase of the day:
新年快乐 Xian nian kuai le – Happy New Year!

Well, it’s absolutely bizarre to think that this week has been just “Another day at the office” for all you guys back in the States. It’s been another amazing week, here, in the PRC, and the New Year’s festivities have been as incredible as anything I’ve ever witnessed (for those of you on Facebook, you can check out some short video of the insane fireworks extravaganza we held outside Fu Li Cheng on Wednesday night). I’m actually a little pissy because my digital camera went kaput yesterday morning, and I don’t have any photos of the massive Temple Fair from yesterday, but let me backtrack a little and fill you in on the entire week.

It was an interesting start to our extremely long week of work. Since we have the entire week off [this week] for the Federal holiday, we were required to work our weekends, last Thursday and Friday, in order to get the extra days off. I’ve been having some really great classes lately, and am building some fantastic relationships with a bunch of my students. Although fraternizing with the students is strictly forbidden, I was very touched by the fact that almost a dozen of them brought me presents for the New Year, and just as many extended some offer to visit with their families, or share a meal during the holiday.

I can now also officially report, that on Sunday evening, after a late workday over at the SOHO campus, I was finally a part of my first car accident! If you could see the way the traffic worked in this city, you would be totally surprised that accidents don’t occur more often, but like everything in Beijing, things somehow manage to work through some crazy system of organized chaos. Our shuttle van was having some problems on the previous two afternoons, and as we were trying to leave the building that night, our driver couldn’t get the damn thing cranked, so Hedi and Aaron and I tried to push the van out into the street to get her started. Unbeknownst to us, there was a taxi trying to cross right in front of us, and instead of hitting the brakes, the driver continued to let the van roll while we pushed it right into the side of the oncoming vehicle. Since noone in the van had their passports on them, everyone quickly jumped out, and we made a dash for it before the police arrived. It was a hilarious situation, and funny to think that anywhere else in the world, we would have been in even more trouble for leaving the scene of the crime.

Later that evening, everyone went out for a big goodbye dinner for a few of the teachers that will soon be leaving, and knowing that the Super Bowl was starting extremely early the following morn, I decided to skip out on the madness when many of the teachers headed over to Sanlitun to continue the partying into the wee hours of the night. When I woke up on Monday morning at 6:00 am to start calling everyone, I was less than pleased when many of the guys who had planned on checking out the game were too hung over to get out of bed. Since I didn’t know exactly how to get to the “Goose and Duck,” the bar everyone was planning on heading to, I was ecstatic to see that the game was playing on my TV at home, albeit, with Chinese commentary over-top of the normal broadcast. As you know, the game was one of the best Super Bowl’s I’ve ever seen, and I called my Boston buddies as soon as the clock ran out, just to rub the loss in their faces like a good friend should. I think they were a little perturbed at first that I had called them all the way from China to scream in their ears about the Pats “giant” loss, but it was a good chance to speak with a few of the fellas that I hadn’t talked to in quite some time. I made it a point to let everyone know that the Boston reign of sports dominance had finally come to an end, and that 2008 is, without a doubt, going to be the Year of the Yankees!!

On Tuesday, after work, we walked down to a tiny little reggae spot called “The Together Bar”, and it was a wild and wolly night that didn’t end until about 8 o’clock the following morning. After everyone poured out of the bar, a little after 3 am, about ten of us headed over to Sanlitun to dance the night away until after the sun came up, so obviously, all of Wednesday was spent sleeping and gearing back up for that night’s New Year’s celebration.

By this time, the fireworks had already been going nonstop for the previous 24 hours, and we set a few off ourselves before heading to Fu Li Cheng for the big party around 10 o’clock. Over at the apartment building, we set off a slew of stuff up on the roof until being reprimanded by the security guards, so we moved down to the big courtyard with just about 30 minutes until the big countdown. By midnight, the whole city had become a freakin’ warzone, and I will probably never see a larger display of firepower as long as I live. In the picture included here, you’ll see the giant bomb that we set off just as the countdown began, and during the subsequent 10 minutes, there were probably $5,000 worth of fireworks going off all around us. It put July 4th in New York City to absolute shame, and you can only imagine what it was like to have the entire city blanketed with shrapnel the following morning.

Yesterday, after only a few hours of light sleep from the constant noise, we trekked over to Daitan Park to witness the New Year’s Temple Fair, and I was amazed by the sheer size of the celebration. Estimates put the number of people over 1 million, and we walked around in awe of the entire incredible display. The Chinese, both young and old, know how to celebrate like no other people I’ve ever seen. I wish I could explain what it was like, but the whole experience was honestly beyond words. It was like Mardi Gras times 100,000, and unfortunately, without my camera, I was unable to take any pics of the virtual insanity. I did, however, take some pretty good video of the whole affair, so once I get to sit down and edit some of the footage together, I’ll send everyone the link to check it out.

I was thinking about heading over to the Temple of Heaven today, but with my camera on the fritz, I think I might just save that journey for another morning. I’m looking forward to heading over by myself one morning to watch the sunrise and see all the soldiers putting the flags up in the square. We’ve got a trip planned to go check out the Great Wall on the 22nd, so I’m praying that I can get my digi-popper operational for that trip, as well. Since I’ve been running on less than four hours of sleep for about a week now, I might just lounge around the apartment today, keeping fat, and trying to edit some of my video footage to get you guys a glimpse of all the madness. There are so many of you I wish were here to share all these experiences with me, but I’ll continue to post updates as much as possible, and you can all check out my photo albums on Facebook if you get around to it. Hopefully you all received my New Year’s best wishes, and I sincerely hope that The Year of the Rat brings you all great happiness, wealth, love and prosperity. Thank you all for the kind emails and notes that you’ve sent, and know that I will constantly continue to keep you in my thoughts. Lots o’ love from your favorite American-Chinese, Tai Ji ren!!!

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