textures | tones

So it’s my first Chinese New Year spent in China actually, since I was little anyways. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I’m still not entirely sure what to expect seeing as the festivities go on for a week apparently. I knew there were going to be fireworks, but not like this, and not in the street. There were people setting off huge explosions since early this morning right outside my apartment. And across the street from my restaurant. And on my way home as I walked. Frightening really; I’ve never been this close to fireworks or explosions before in my life. I could feel the particulate fall on my head…And loud as hell! Unlike US fireworks, these don’t seem to have been meant to be pretty and in the sky. Imagine a huge chain of explosives, that just blow up and spark and make a really loud noise and you’ll have the bulk of Chinese fireworks. Of course there’s the regular up in the sky “oh look how pretty” kind of fireworks as well, which have been going off non-stop since 5 minutes before midnight, so that would be over 35 minutes ago. And they’re still going, I’ll update the post when it’s done. But I wasn’t sure how this would affect my business, because a lot of people do go home for the holidays. It’s tradition that for Chinese New Year, you go home. The public transportation system’s been grinding to a halt with people unable to get plane or train tickets because everything’s full. I’ve had multiple foreign tourists come into my restaurant and tell me that they’re stuck here. So the city’s pretty empty, as empty as it can be I guess. And a lot of stores and restaurants are closed. The point being, I wasn’t sure if I’d have any business, and sure enough, today wasn’t that great of a day at the restaurant. It was fine, as a normal day goes, better than fine actually. But for a holiday, unlike the other holidays I’ve had where I’ve done great business like Christmas Eve or New Years. What is interesting is that definitely the Chinese have cleared out; my restaurant was filled with foreigners, though sometimes with their Chinese significant others. We shall see how the week plays out, whether I have business or not, whether I can stand the constant war zone noise outside my window. Seriously, it’s like the news footage of the Iraq war. I even took video, and am going to try uploading it here later for all to enjoy. If you have post traumatic stress disorder, be warned.