I am now moved into my new place. Have a fantastic apartment right next to the
school, something like a 10 to 15 minute walk.
I was debating on the title, and decided that a “clean” title was the
way to go, I was debating “Fu Qing Long Restaurant” (I’m not sure how you sound
that out, but I’m still snickering), or, “I have culture coming out of my …” (I
finally decided that my mother wouldn’t like that, and since she will read
this, it’s best to avoid that one… and the first one for that matter.
It is Chinese New Year!
The phrase Sheen nyen kwai lu (lu like the first part of lurk…sorry
brain is only functioning so-so right now), means Happy New Year. The other two phrases heard often this week
is Gong (long “o”) She Fat Tsai, which means Good Luck, Get Money, and the
response to that is Hong (again, long “o”) Bao Ni Li (I as in light), which
actually means, give me money. In China,
when someone graduates, has a birthday, survives until the new year, or
whatever other holiday there is, it is customary to give your child a Hong Bao,
which is an envelope full of money.
Money is given in 5’s and 1’s.
so, you can give 50 Yuan, 100, 500, 1000, etc. I had to give one to my doorman, and one to
my landlord, with 50 RMB in it (Yuan and RMB are interchangeable, Yuan is the
old money, but it’s more common in use than remnimbi, which I’ve never heard
anyone say). If you get married, every
child relative of your wife is supposed to be given 1,000 RMB minimum from you,
so, it’s best to make sure you marry into a small family. You also need to give one to your wife, and
probably your mother-in-law, I’m not sure, and I don’t want to ask.
Chinese New Year goes for 1 week, kind of, it can go longer,
depending on the industry, but the businesses are only shut down for 1
week. Somewhere around 60-75% of the
businesses in Shenzhen are closed right now.
The city is mostly deserted, but all of the cultural places to go are
PACKED with people. We just got back
from the beach, and there were at least a million people there. The bus back was completely packed.
Yesterday, we went to a city park and wandered around,
climbed a mountain (which means a couple of thousand stairs), and went for hot
pot. The day before, we went to a
statue, can’t remember the name, but he was the founder of Shenzhen, I can
remember the entire story except for the name, go figure, I think it’s because
it’s always written in Chinese, and I have to be told all of the time, some
things just don’t stick. The statue was
on the top of a mountain, so we went up a couple of thousand steps, in a
pushing crowd for an hour or two. The
day before that, we went to Windows of the World for the start of the New Year,
and that was straight insanity.
Windows of the world is a theme park of sorts. It has every major country and an example of
their architecture in miniature. So,
there’s an Eiffel Tower that is about 15 stories tall. There’s the Japanese palace, etc, etc. the park is huge, we walked all the way
around it. They had multiple stages set
up with activities going on for 6 hours (it could have been longer, we were
there for 6 hours). The show showcased
China, so, there were kung fu experts, and that was beyond anything I’ve seen
before in movies, they were like Jackie Chan, but 5-10 guys performing
perfectly in time, using chains, wooden staffs, kicking, punching, etc. At the end of the show was the most intense
firework show I have seen in my entire life.
They shot off fireworks 10 to 12 at a time, with zero breaks for about
half an hour. The display blew my mind.
The buildings in Shenzhen are lit up in multi colour. My school has lights going up in red, yellow,
and green cycling constantly, the KK mall, has a multi coloured waterfall
effect going, every building is lit up like Christmas until around midnight or
1 am. There are fireworks that start
going off in the city when it gets dark until 1 am, every 5 minutes. What’s amazing about this, is that fireworks
are illegal to own in China, so, it has to be professional displays going on at
various locations every 5 minutes.
I keep expecting to see extremely drunk people wandering
around, like our new years parties, for example. But, I think that since this is such a family
holiday, they’re actually better behaved than normal.
The camera on my phone broke yesterday, it says “no
connection to camera”, no idea what that means.
I may have to take it to Hua qiang bei, which can repair
everything. If anyone back home has a
broken iphone or any type of phone, keep it, and send it to me when I get my
place straightened out. I can take it
there, get it repaired better than new, and send it back to you for less money
than you getting a new phone. The only
real problem is if it is a cirquit board, if you go down far enough into the
menu system, the new one will be in Chinese.
I actually saw spare keys for my Palm Pilot there, too bad I got rid of
that thing.
So, yesterday, Mei and I went to purchase a new camera. It was on sale for 1,099 RMB, I paid 899 on
my card, and 200 in cash, and was given a camera stand, a case, a memory card
USB adapter, and cooking oil on top of the camera. The cooking oil still stumps me. I charged the camera up all night, then we
went to the sea today, and it only took 7 hours to completely kill the
battery. I’d love to send you all of the
pictures we took, but I’m not sure that that’s possible, I’m going to find out
if there’s an upload limit to blogspot, just to give you an idea of what it’s
like hanging out with Chinese people and a camera. I do know that I need a bigger card, 4GB will
not be enough, I may need to carry a spare battery with me, if we’re going on a
longer excursion.
My system is still adjusting. I’m not sure that I’m sick, I just think that
my body is unhappy with what I’ve been feeding it on occasion. Street food is and isn’t good, you can
usually look at it and decide. Go with
what your gut is telling you, if you don’t, you’ll pay. I have the beginning of a cold, or something
going on, but I think it’s just my subconscious saying, stay home, take it
easy, we need to slow down. Fortunately,
I rarely listen to the part of my brain that has common sense, as most of you
who know me are already well aware. Mei
has decided that I am sick though, and is applying Chinese cures, which is
interesting, and some of which work for limited time periods. I think of them all, I would like to avoid
the tea again, I don’t know what it was, but it tasted awful, worked very well
for about 6 hours though, better than Sudafed.
It had a little stick of something you were supposed to eat afterwards
that they told me was sweet, I couldn’t prove them right, it did get the taste
out of my mouth by putting something worse in place of it.
I will do better at writing in this thing, but I didn’t bother
when I thought that there was no wifi, I finally decided that I can post a pile
of them all at once when my wifi is up.
So, I’m going to start writing this every day. Don’t be surprised if you get a 10 page essay
every now and then. If you grade it and
send it back to me, I’ll have a Chinese curse placed on you. (yup, Annette, I was thinking of you!!).
On the way home, we were walking along and there was a sign
for Fu Qing Long Restaurant. It was next
to the Fu Qing Long Holiday Inn, I think we’re going to have to go there for
dinner one day this week, or next week.
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