Xin Nian Kui Le

New Year (Xin Nian) Shin Neean

Spring Festival (Chun Jie) Chewin Gee-a

We got a week off for the Chinese Lunar New Year (as opposed to the Gregorian New Year which is also celebrated here), or Spring Festival, which was nice, despite the cold. The shops and stores closed early in the week. So we had to make sure to have our groceries picked up from the super market by Tuesday. Linda and I went together to make sure that we got everything that we would need. Linda went when she was hungry and ended up buying half the chocolate in the store, along with every other heavy thing that she could find. So our walk back to the flat was a bit strenuous, but I feel it was my workout for the day.

The celebration has, it seems, been going on since I before I got here. Small explosions can be heard throughout the day followed immediately, of course by car alarms. The week of the Lunar New Year the explosions began to pick up. The street corners were filled with packages of fire crackers stacked as tall as I stand. Little boys and grown men had smiles on their faces as they would bend over with a lighter igniting the fuse. The sizzle and sparks were the only warning to passers-by of any danger ahead. Linda and I were grateful if it was just a small pop of the equivalent to our Black Cats.

As we left for our coworkers flat we walked the two blocks to the bus stop (I will go into how great public transportation is in a future entry) pausing or speeding up to avoid the explosions along the sidewalks. We came to the bus stop just as a man was igniting the fuse of a mortar round. We paused in wonderment as he was dong it in the middle of a packed parking lot of a restaurant. The man was obviously an employee of the upper class restaurant which had Mercedes and BMW’s and other automobiles sitting in the parking lot waiting for their owners to finish their meal so that they could themselves get in the safe underground parking lots that protect them most nights. The first mortar round launched high into the air exploding in a brilliant green that reflected off the curved glass of the restaurant to the delight of the diners inside. The second launched, but only went up maybe three meters and exploded with a thunder so massive that our ears were left ringing and unable to hear what were most likely tremendous echoes off the near by buildings. The red “stars”( http://people.howstuffworks.com/fireworks.htm) came shooting out of the shell in what seemed to me like slow motion. They careened into the fancy cars with white sparks trailing in their wake. One star split the distance between Linda and I as we stood near each other in awe at the danger all around us. We quickly made our way to the street and behind the protection of the bus stop glass.

The busses had stopped running by this time, but the taxis were out in full swing. In fact, aside from a few private vehicles taxis were the only thing on the roads. Our driver made a left turn onto a road in a canyon of tall apartments just as two men were lighting the fuse of a small mortar round in the middle of the street on to which we turned. They simply proceeded toward the right (east side) curb as the men scurried to the west. The fuse hit the charge just as my widow came parallel with the small cardboard cylinder. The flash was blinding and the bang deafening in the small car. The projectile shot up out of sight while sparks burst out in an inverted cone from the barrel. Light from the star burst above us reflected off the glass on the canyon towering over our back seat perches.

It was like something out of I am Legend, driving down the empty roads of Xian. People were at this time inside enjoying time with their families (Lunar New Year is like our Christmas.)

The apartment that we went to is on the 28^th floor with a wonderful unobstructed god’s- eye view of the ancient city. The wall that protects all four sides of the old capital was decorated with white rope lights outlining the parapet that once protected archers from attack. The battlements stand ready to be used to defend the city once again, but for now host a display of red lanterns and other decorations along the wall walks. (Sorry, I have been reading The Once and Future King again).

The fireworks had been going on since the day I got there, but they picked up the first day of the 15 day holiday period. More impressively they picked up even more starting at about 11:00pm. Explosions were echoing across the city at about 1 audible bang every 3 seconds. At 11:45 something that I have never experienced and will never forget happened. The entire city began to light up with a rainbow of colors from every street corner. I do not think I am exaggerating at all when I say that there were fireworks launching from every street corner in the city.

I am normally not very impressed with a fireworks display. The best I had seen up to this point were in Madison on June 28 of 2003. The second best, of course were the Independence Day fireworks put on by North Riverside in 2001. The lights and sounds were of Xi’an on breathtaking. The buildings inside the city wall are all under 6 floors. So the view was only limited by the pollution which was thankfully low that night. If China were at war I would have thought that we were being bombed. The bursts of light reminded me of those I saw on television in war zones. It occurred to me several times throughout the hour long non-stop aerial display that what I perceived as large explosions are actually tiny. These explosions were from small shells when the air force uses at a minimum a 250 pound bomb. I can only imagine what goes through the head of someone in those situations. Sorry for the digression.

The fireworks were launching between the high rises. The shots generally made it over many of the shorter buildings. Since we were on the 28^th floor, we were actually at a wonderful altitude. The firework rounds actually exploded outside of our windows. On several occasions we had to move out of the way of stars that actually shot into the apartment. I wish I had brought my bullet resistant sunglasses to the party. I will have to remember that for next time.

The next morning Linda and I were jarred awake by the wonderful reverberation of (literally) thousands of firecrackers echoing in our courtyard. The detonations continued through out the day. They have become less frequent, but are not expected to ever stop.

Xin Nian Kui Le (Happy New Year)

Things I do not see

I was walking to work today hoping that it would warm up a bit more when I saw something peaking through the haze I had not seen since I was in Chicago, the sun. Part of the reason I had not seen the sun has been the cloud cover. It was raining in Hong Kong, and snowing when I got to Xian. The other part is the pollution though out China.

As you walk around the cities here you might say, “Wow, it sure is foggy here. The buildings begin to get fuzzy just half a block away, and they are completely enveloped by the fog about a kilometer away.” Well, this is not fog. It is pollution. Along with not seeing the sun in China you will rarely see planes, helicopters, clouds, stars, or blue skies.

You are probably thinking to you self, That is crazy Rick you are exaggerating. No city could be that polluted all year round with only a few “blue sky days.” Where can all of this pollution come from? In fact not only this city can be this way but many cities are this way. Planning for the Beijing Olympics, which will be occurring this summer, has included removing much of the industry from the city and moving it elsewhere in the country, some to my beautiful city of Xi’an (which was already one of the industrial capitals). Power plants in the area will be shutting down in the weeks ahead of the games to help clean the air. Millions of trees have been planted around the city of Beijing. The government was thrilled that this last year had 246 “blue sky days” beating their goal for the year by a day. China “blue sky days” are a bit different than US some of theirs would actually be “ozone action days” in Chicago where the sun’s ultra violet light activates some of the pollutants in the air and forms the haze that we see often only on the hottest of summer days.

The pollution has many sources. Similar to the North America the wind blows from west to east on most day. It picks up pollutants from Europe and now the fast developing Eastern European block countries and carries it across the continents while picking up more pollutants. A study released a couple years ago (I saw the article on the BBC News or MSNBC and don’t feel like finding the link now) found that much of the worst air pollution in the world actually comes from rural China. The farmers burn their garbage and their fields after the harvest. This releases amazing amounts of chemicals into the air. Additionally rice farming in general produces large quantities of methane gas. All of these pollutants are picked up by the winds as they proceed east. They combine with the pollution given off by the factories that supply the world with goods, and the vehicles that move those goods and the laborers that produce them. The Chinese economy has been growing at better than 10% per year for the last 15 years, that means that they double their economies size in less than 7 years(many times in less than 5 years).

If you are a science teacher you can do an environmental impact experiment (also an example of diffusion) using a large beaker of water, milk, and eye dropper. Take the milk in the eye dropper SLOWLY putting one drop of milk in the beaker, and say that “each drop of milk is one year’s pollution.” (If it is a smaller beaker say it is 10 years) Do 100 years or just 20 years and you will see the difference. Also you will see how the pollution lingers in the spot that you drop the milk. Variations include wind (simulated by stirring before you put the milk in) and emerging markets by adding drops in different areas of the beaker. I don’t know if you can do it at different altitudes (depths) but that might be fun too. Oh, and try putting it over a heat source and see if convection currents distribute it differently.

Just so everyone knows I am sorry if the format of this blog is not very good I am allowed to post my entries, but I am not allowed to view them. China blocks blogs and my BBC news L so I can not see what it looks like.