新年快乐！Happy New Year!

Well, it's New Year's Eve here (Jan 25). We're about to usher in a new year-the year 4707! :)

So, to honor the occasion, I thought I'd give you a taste of Spring Festival (New Year's is during the Spring Festival)

Lanterns are everywhere. They can be found hanging along the street, in doorways, along sidewalks, in homes, restaurants, stores.

This is what I see at night from my living room window. In the city there are a lot of rules and regulations regarding fireworks, so they aren't nearly as frequent or numerous as in other cities I have lived in, but I still enjoy having a glittering skyline.

This is the year of the Ox...so, I thought I'd show you a few New Year's greetings as well:

I'll be celebrating with some American friends who live outside the city. We'll eat dumplings and other goodies, stay up til midnight, when we'll go out and watch fireworks!

My Ghost Town

So. It's almost Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). It's like a ghost town around my place. Everyone has gone back to their hometowns for the holidays. The shops are all closed up...metal sliding doors cover the normal glass doors. The street that's usually packed with cars, bikes, and people is empty...except for me. the lonely foreigner. And the few others who haven't left (or can't).

I feel like I'm living in a movie-one of those old westerns where the bandit comes to town and everyone disappears, holes up inside with boards over the windows...and the creepy music plays and a tumbleweed blows by. No tumbleweeds here, just dust swirls. Yesterday I was thinking "wow, this street is so big today..." Then I realized that there were no cars driving, no bikes and people and the usual rows and rows of parked "bread vans" are all gone. So for the first time, I can actually SEE the road.

The people who own my new favorite eating place have gone back to their hometown... fortunately I got in for one last meal there before they took off. The bus that I take everyday, which is usually packed and busting at the seams (literally...they open the door and people fall out. Then those people get back on and 15 new people squeeze on too)...is now nearly empty. Not only do I have room to breathe on the bus, I could even sit if I wanted to!

I've been watching more tv lately. Finding good tv shows and variety shows on tv. This morning I realized that the things I see have become normal. I don't think it strange at all to see the hosts come on in sequence and sparkly outfits and do things Americans would only do when they're completely drunk off their rocker.



Somehow the crazy antics don't seem out of place to me anymore. These are normal, everyday variety show scenes. And yet when I try to think about what a "normal" american would think when watching these shows, my first thought is "why isn't this normal? why don't we do funny things like this on tv?" I don't understand everything, but I understand enough that when I laugh, I'm laughing for the same reason as the audience...I'm not really an outsider...yet I still am. It's a strange feeling.

'Tis the Season

Oh how I love packages...the suspense of finding out what kind of goodies are hidden inside! And I've been fortunate enough to receive 3 packages this holiday season (the holiday season for me starts with Thanksgiving and ends with my bday on Jan. 4).

Check out my goodies!

Pictures of my birthday cake (compliments of my Chinese little sister's parents) are to come (I didn't have my camera, so I'll have to get them off of someone else's).