Today is Chinese New Year Day and Chuck and I strolled around our block and saw lots of things that are happening after last night’s fireworks. First off, we noticed that in our complex there are hills of firework debris all over, last night at the time struck midnight the fireworks were fierce here. We could see and hear firecrackers and colorful launches between the tallest building in our complex and the one right in front of our kitchen windows; I also saw the light from the rows of firecrackers that were set off in the courtyard between our building and the one right in front of us. On our way out, the connivance store had not yet opened and we figured that because of the late night last night we would not see many people out and about…yet. We were wrong, the street cleaners had already been busily at work sweeping up the debris from last night even as more fresh debris was created we hear the sound of firecrackers all over our section of the city and tonight will see more for sure. Our sweet potato vendor is once again selling fireworks and tried really hard to get us to buy more today. We then walked into the park, the same one that we were at last night setting off fireworks, except for the charred patches of sidewalk there remained no visible sign of the last nights activity, however if you go further you can see the place just outside the park where the boxes of used fireworks were stacked. My guess would be that after tonight that stack will grow and it will then be removed. We walked all the way through the park meeting a few Chinese on our journey and greeted them with a smile and a nod; we don’t get as many stares as we have become a fairly normal site in and around our home. It is when we go further out that we get more stares. In the middle of the park there is a place where you can play ping pong tables have been erected and you can play outside when the weather is nice. We stopped here around the time of National Day in September and the tables were always full, now they are empty waiting for spring to come with people to play on them. China also has exercise equipment in the park and I took a picture of one piece of equipment with Chuck trying it out. We both tried some of it and have decided that this would be a good place for us to come and work out some and I don’t mean just when the weather warms up, we saw people out there today in winter coats and gloves staying fit and active and right now with the decreased activity because of the winter, this will be a welcome spot to burn some energy off. This park is the same park that we heard the traditional music for National Day but we didn’t go down the street here. On Ru He Lu (汝河路) we saw lots of stores. Most closed for the holiday but we found a pharmacy (big English writing) and a noodle house of some sort that I identified a character from the word noodle. We also saw something that we didn’t think we would and that is some local people passing out New Year greetings to people who had to work today, the cooks and street cleaning staff that didn’t get today off; busses were also running but like in the states I’m betting they were on a holiday schedule. Chuck was interested in seeing what a certain building was for I’ll not tell here, but you can check out his blog to find out what the building is and how it looks. We then headed back home via Gongren Lu (工人路) checking out the stores that were closed on our way. Guess what Chuck found today? A lighter so that we can light firecrackers and things, good to have them around anyway but I am thankful to our Chinese neighbors who willingly let us borrow their lighters to light fireworks last night. Tonight we will be ready!
Lanfang
2/11/2013 01:37:15 pm
Hi Toni,
My belated wish: happy Chinese New Year.
I saw some Characters, such as, Ruhe Lu is better to be written as "汝河路"; and Gongren Lu, "工人路".
"Gongren [工人]" in Chinese means worker(s) who might work in factories or manufacturing companies. It usually refers to those who earn their life by selling their physical labor, rather than the mental work.
Best,
Lanfang
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Toni McGuire
This is my first time living outside of the US. I am a wife, mother, classical and folk musician, writer, home schooler, tutor and teacher at a Henan University of Technology in Zhengzhou.