I am a Spring Festival agnostic and I really want to believe in the power of the Lunar New Year. I like dumplings, I like family, and having grown up in New Hampshire, the festive blending of an excuse to alcoholic excess plus the availability of cheap explosives makes me sentimental, wistful even.
I’m amused by the annual Ayi exodus. Since it’s rare to see a Beijing expat lift anything heavier than money, this seasonal retreat of our nannies, waitresses, cooks, cleaners, drivers, dry cleaners, convenience store owners, and jianbing purveyors is a useful exercise in deprivation and self-reliance…like an outward bound experience for the neo-colonialist in all of us.
I really enjoy temple fairs. I think of it as a way to spread wealth. Two years ago I had my wallet nicked. Last year somebody managed to walk away with YJ’s cell phone. I’m taking my students to Ditan Park next Wednesday. If anybody is looking for a used iPod, blackberry, or expensive camera, check the local pawnshops in the Beixinqiao area on Thursday morning.
I love the gala. The gambling possibilities are limitless. Currently I have 50 RMB on the Over/Under for “first sighting of happy dancing Han dressed as minorities singing about how much they love the Party” and “Number of Dashan wannabe foreign minstrel acts.”[1] I also have a three-way teaser on a Song Zuying song + Jiang Zemin sighting + shot of Mrs. Jiang Zemin looking like she really wants to crack one of Jiang’s nuts in a hydraulic press.
I’m disappointed Zhao Benshan won’t be performing. Never figured the guy to ‘retire.’ I guess I had always hoped he would go out in a blaze of glory, one final performance busting out blue jokes sufficient to make a Shenzhen hooker sit up and take notes while mooning the CCTV censors with a man-sized ass. Pity, really.
I like that my in-laws live in Tianjin. While I enjoy friends talking about the travails of journeying to remote county towns in farthest Dongbei or a 45-hour train ride to Guangdong to take part in family bonding, I prefer staying closer to home. Actually, I’m so congenitally lazy I’ve finally worked out a scheme whereby Tianjin comes to Beijing thus sparing me the ‘effort’ of a 35-minute train ride. To be fair our apartment is a little bit more guest convenient than where we stay in Tianjin, but my mother-in-law laments that Beijing is quite boring during the Spring Festival. To make her feel at home this year I’ve hired a few mercs from Blackwater Security to shoot RPGs and random bursts of gunfire off our rooftop at midnight on Sunday. It should up the explosion quotient but if that doesn’t work, I’ll simply put an unopened can of soup and a bottle of ergoutou in the microwave and press “start.”
Actually, as longtime readers of my blog know I seriously lucked out in the Chinese In-Law Lotto. My father-in-law neither smokes nor drinks which means that I don’t need to ring in this year by sacrificing future years through participation in quaint customs like “tobacco-as-testosterone,” “toasting-with-jet-fuel” and my favorite, “drinking-to-the-point-of-delirium-before-going-outside-with-sufficient-explosives-to-end-the-Taliban-and-lighting-them-with-the-cigarettes-dangling-from-our-mouths.” My mother-in-law is an incredible cook, and her ability to dote on my wife to the point of psychological scarring should someday find its way into a textbook.
Perhaps the mystery of Spring Festival will always elude me, but at least I can enjoy it as a time to catch up one work, fulfill my jiaozi quota for the quarter, and write snarky blog posts about the holiday season while pretending to work on my laptop.
Happy Year of the Dragon!
[1] Yes, Granite Studio read Dashan’s rebuttal on Quora to two decades of criticism of Dashan. All Granite Studio can say is that Granite Studio has trouble taking anybody seriously who talks about one of their ‘identities’ in the third person. He’s a xiangsheng artist for Christ’s sake, not Batman.