D - 过年好 (Commence the detonation)

Contrary to the title of the post, 过年好, Guo Nian Hao is a traditional Chinese greeting heard during this season meaning Happy New Year. Needless to say we've been hearing it regularly in Dalian this past week. We've also experienced a different type of greeting recently - the explosion. Apparently the Year of the Pig is so fortunate, everyone in Dalian has taken to setting off their fireworks at all hours of the day. Our second night back I was awakened at 4am by a cacophony of cannon shots. And I do mean cannon shots - I think they have a cannon on campus that can shoot blanks. In China, fireworks are more about sound than sight (but there's plenty of light as you'll see), thus the ongoing orchestra of black powder.

All of this is a tremendous contrast to places like New York or your favorite nanny State where giving your children a sparkler could get Social Services called and your kids in foster care. In China on the other hand, if you're not handing out bottle rockets by age 6, you are probably being delinquent in your parental duties.

Given all the fireworks, we decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Thus on Monday evening we decided to attend the Dalian City fireworks show at Xinghai Square. We took two brief videos with C's camera while there. The first is just a quick panorama of our spot at the Square. The second is the beginning of the fireworks show. Not being a fireworks aficionado I couldn't tell you if it was a good show or not. C wasn't that impressed, so I will defer to her experience.

Panorama:



Beginning of the show:


And if you're really interested in getting a good feel for the fireworks around the city, click here. This is a video made by another Dalian resident, as found on YouTube. Our video taking/editing skills are not up to this standard, so check it out as you'll see a lot more.

After the fireworks were over, we had to somehow get back to our apartment. We went with some of the other foreign teachers though who wanted to eat first. It turned out that it didn't really matter. The crowds were huge and we couldn't get across the street to the 202 tram line. So instead we walked a couple of kilometers down to Heishijiao where our local McDonald's is. Now Xinghai Square really isn't that far from our campus, but it seemed a lot longer when we were walking. Fortunately, it wasn't overly cold (high 30s). After a couple hamburgers we were able to catch the tram there, and get back to campus. I felt bad for the girls working at McDonald's because the place was mobbed and they seemed woefully unprepared for such a huge crowd. I doubt they've ever been that busy at 9:30pm because people here don't really like to eat late.