The Chinese Year of the Tiger

Well, this past week I was able to experience my second New Year celebration. You see, in China, they have their own calendar they go by and they have their own New Years celebration aside from the traditional January 1st date. Hence, I had the pleasure of celebrating 2 new years eve's for 2010. I must say it turned out to be an extraordinary Chinese New Year and very exciting. This was not a boring time at all. I will attempt to explain.

Let's start with work and the time leading up to the New Year. We had been planning on the CNY (Chinese new year) for quite some time. We had been told that the local contractors and workers pretty much shut down everything during this time of the year. We were told that about a week prior to the new year the Chinese folks begin to leave work and head home to spend time with their families. Then there is the actual 2 weeks of the CNY which everyone travels and spends with their family. After that, the local folks take a week to get back to work, that is if they even decide to come back to work. Well, if you count all that up you will get a mere 4 weeks that basically is not very productive at all. We knew this would happen so we actually baked that into our installation schedule. That's right, we have put in our project schedule 4 weeks of no work by the sub contractors. This was not so bad but the hard part was that we did not move our end date for the completion of the project out be 4 weeks. So, this means we just loose a month of work productivity toward the completion of the project. We obviously will be pressured to make up that 4 weeks some where in the remaining time of the project. On top of all this, history has shown that 30 to 40% of the workers just never come back to work after the CNY. Now that is what is left to be seen and something we will begin to deal with starting the 1st of March. In the meantime, our workers dwindled down to only about 40 of 50 people showing up to work prior to the 12th of Feb. That was the last day of work prior to the CNY which was actually the eve of the 13th. We will see how things go after next week.

The funny thing about the CNY, this is a time when family is extremely important for everyone of the Chinese people. They take days to travel to their birth places by train, bus, and plane. You see everyone carrying luggage, packages and gifts to take home with them for their family. This is a very important time for them. They have many traditions that happen this time of the year. This is the biggest holiday celebration in China each year. I was lucky enough to be able to experience some of those traditions first hand while here in China. Being here by myself my driver, Nicholas, asked me to be a part of their family. He is a local born person so all of his family is here in town. He was lucky enough to not have to travel at all. Nicholas was excited to have me over to spend time on New Years Eve and meet his family. Here is Nicholas and his entire family. His son and wife to his right and his mother, sister and brother in law to his left.

Part of CNY tradition is shooting off fireworks where ever and when ever you want too. I have never heard so many fireworks and firecrackers in my life. Everyday, every night, every afternoon there was something exploding. Then on new years eve, the normal tradition is that you spend time with family, eat very traditional Chinese food for dinner, sit around and talk and play cards for a few hours and then begin to make dumplings. Once the dumplings are made you all go outside at 11:30pm and shoot off fireworks. After the fireworks you come back inside and sit and eat the dumplings you made earlier. Now that is a lot of eating. After that you just relax as a family and look forward to the next 2 weeks enjoying your family.

So here is how my evening went. At 5:00pm Nicholas picked me up at my apartment. We drove down to his house. I had to take a gift with me to the house so I had purchased 3 baskets of fruit to give to his wife, mother and sister. This seems to be a very traditional gift to give at this time of year. We showed up at this house and I was greeted outside the door by Nicholas' son. He is 14 and a very big boy. He helped carry up the fruit baskets. I got to the door and was greeted by his whole family. I would tell you their names but it is hard to remember how to pronounce them. As I walked in the front door I was helped with taking my shoes off and put slippers on. This too is a very traditional Chinese habit. You always take your shoes off before you go in the house. I was then asked to sit down. Now mind you that no one in the house speaks English. Nicholas only knows what he has learned since I have been here and his son knows a little from school. I sat down and on the coffee table was much fruit, nuts, pumpkin seeds and watermelon seeds. There were different types of drinks and a bowl full of candy. I can see that they went all out for me. We sat and talked some what. His mother, who I have met a number of times, sat next to me. She kept telling me to eat the nuts and seeds. Have a drink of apple juice and candy. She didn't want to be without anything.

Here is Nicholas with his mother. A very sweet lady

Now once we sat there for a while I got to watch Nicholas' brother in law cook some of the food. He is a cook by trade so Nicholas told me we would have good food. He wasn't kidding. The food was good, interesting and different. His brother in law was an excellent cook and in such a small kitchen he was able to produce large quantities of food.

The master cook on a 2 burner stove.

What came next we an experience. They put me at the head of the table with a cushion on the chair. I was the honored guest. They started out with about 5 different dishes of food on the table. This continued to grow while we began eating until we had 15 different dishes on the table all at once. Now, this was not a big table. Just big enough for 4 people and we ended up with 7 sitting around it eating. We had platters of food stacked on top of each other. Good thing we didn't have any plates as there would not have been room. We used a very small bowl and a saucer. Nothing except chopsticks to use. Again, very traditional.

you can see the kitchen in the background. Very small.

Here is a list of what we ended up with on the table to eat. Kung Pao chicken, Kung Pao pork, Octopus, edible fungus, a whole sweet and sour fish complete with head and eyes, snow peas, Sea Cucumber (you know, those soft black creatures that you can hold at Sea World), a shrimp salad type platter and a plate of whole shrimp not cut up, a pork plate, a beef plate, a sweet and sour breaded meat plate, egg plant, a sticky potato plate. The last plate I remember was another traditional Chinese plate which was from the sea, that being crab.

Now, I tried all of it. Obviously some of it was much easier to eat then others. The chicken, pork, beef, and shrimp were all very good. I had a difficult time with the Octopus and Sea Cucumber. The edible fungus (mushrooms) we very slimy and just slid down the throat with no problem. I didn't let them stay in my mouth very long. The Sea Cucumber was the weirdness tasting and had very strange texture. This is a very common food here but very expensive. It is supposed to be very good for the body and makes you healthy. It apparently holds very medicinal powers and is good for the body. Nicholas' mother kept putting more and more of it on my plate, both hot and cold. I couldn't swallow the pieces whole so I had to chew them a couple times before I could swallow them. It was the same with the Octopus. Very different tasting and extremely hard to chew. Very fishy tasty as well.

Well, I managed to finish the meal. Most of it was very delicious. I had more then enough to eat. The plates just kept coming and coming. Finally after we were done we all took some pictures. Here are a few from the night.

Nicholas his wife and son

Myself, Nicholas, his wife and sister

Myself, Nicholas and his son

Nicholas, his son and wife and me

Next, after the dinner I was led back to the sitting area and asked to sit and relax. Little did I know I was about be eat more. By the couch on the coffee table were a couple bowls of fruit. Nicholas' wife took the two bowls to the kitchen and cut all the fruit up. There were apples, Kiwi's, oranges, dragon fruit, pears (a very important fruit in china, it brings you good prosperity), a honeydew type melon common to China and bamboo fruit. I didn't even know that bamboo had fruit. It is this very hard shell that when you crack it open there is this white slimy seed inside that you have to dig out and eat. It is very disgusting looking and is very slippery and slimy but tastes very sweet. Nicholas told me to not look at it, just eat it. That makes it easier to eat. It actually looked like a big aaaaachchcc toooooo . Nicholas' mother kept telling me to eat, eat, eat. I was so full I couldn't eat another bite. But, I did. and every time my plate got empty they put more fruit on it.

I finally went into Nicholas' son's room and we were able to have a very nice conversation by way of computer. He would type in a question and it would translate to English. I could then answer. I had my hand held translator and we talked for about an hour and a half. Of course, they kept bringing me more fruit to eat the whole time. It got to be about 11:00 and it was time to make the traditional dumplings. They wanted me to learn how to wrap the dumplings so I gave it a shot. I was not the best at it but it was fun.

Here is how it's done, it is easy I was told.

Just fill the dumpling and fold it over and squeeze it shut

Easier said than done

I ended up leaving it to the experts, they were much faster than I was

Now came the time of fireworks. I have never seen nor heard so many fireworks in my life. It sounded like a war zone outside. There were hundreds of people around all shooting off their own set of fireworks and firecrackers. It was so loud and there were so many going off that the smoke filled the air and you couldn't see the people across the road. Talk about your pollution. That smoke filled the air the rest of the night. On my way home it was so smokey in the city you could not see to drive.

After the fireworks we went back inside and actually ate all the dumplings we had just made. This was a lot of food and once again Nicholas' mother kept telling me to eat more. I just could not eat any more. I must have had about 15 dumplings. They were filled with beef and spices. Very very good. I finally said that I would only eat one more and they said two. I said one and that was all I could do. I was finally finished for the night. Nicholas then drove me home and I rolled myself into bed. What a wonderful time to experience a real Chinese New Year. This is something I will never forget. I just hope I am not here again next year to relive it.

Well, the holiday was not over. On Monday night there was going to be a very large fireworks display in downtown. Brian, Barb and I decided to go and watch them. It was however so cold outside that it was going to be miserable if we were going to have to stand outside with about a million people to watch this massive display of fireworks in Xing Xhai square. We lucked out, one of our do workers happens to be staying in an apartment in downtown overlooking the square and overlooking the exact location of the fireworks. What a better way to watch the display than in a warm apartment, eating snacks and drinking beer. We were warm and dry and comfortable. Well feed and hydrated. When the fireworks began around 7:30 pm we all chose a window to look out of. This was one massive display of fireworks. It was like a non stop of 30 minutes of a what normally see as a finale. It wasn't just shoot one up and explode, it was 10 to 12 in the air at all times plus the ground display. I have never seen such a display in the past. I took some video but couldn't load it up on here. I will see what I can do in the future.

The whole square was lit up to extremes

Well, once the fireworks display was done we thought is be best to head out. We let the crowd down below disperse and decided we would head off to another party we were expected at. Everyone decided to leave about the same time. Well, when we all headed for the door we found to our dismay that we could not get out of the door. It was locked. No problem right? Just unlock it and head out. Well, that did not work. The security dead bolt would not unlock. For some reason the dead bolt would not disengage and stayed locked. Now this might not have been a problem as we could just take the hinges out from the inside and open the door. That wasn't going to happen either. This was a security door which had 3 dead bolts engage on the one side of the door jam and had 3 pins on the opposite side of the door jam. These pins and deadbolts went into a solid steel door jam built in to the doorway. We were truly locked in. Here we were, on the 23rd floor of an apartment building on a holiday and no other way to get out. We called some friends and told them we were locked in. They showed up on the other side of the door after about an hour. They wanted to try and use the key to open the door from the hallway side. Well we had the key inside and could not figure out how to get it to them. We decided to put the key in a asprin bottle, fill it with tools for weight and throw it off the balcony down 23 stories. They were waiting at the bottom. Good thing I had my laser as I was able to shine it where the bottle landed. They got the key and tried opening it up. It didn't work. We asked the tenant if there was a maintenance person on duty, he didn't know, asked about the people at the front lobby, he didn't know and they didn't speak english. We were in trouble. Luckly Jackie, Brians driver, was outside and he was able to help out. He tried to call the police, they said don't call us. He called some locksmiths, they said don't call us, it is holiday. He tried calling the manufacturer of the door lock, they said they could not help until tomorrow. Looks like at this point we were going to be spending the night. Everyone in the room took a crack at trying to open the door. Non of us succeded. Finally, at 12:15am we decided to call the fire department. Jackie called them and they said call the police, Jackie called the police again and they asked him why he was calling them? Finally Jackie called the fire department again and they came over. We decided to have the door broke down so we could all leave. It took almost an hour before the fire department decided to break it down because they were wondering who was going to pay for the door. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the landlord we convinced the firemen to break it down. There was 8 firemen and 3 policemen outside the door. Suddenly we heard them pounding a crow bar in the door jam. Well, this did not work. The security door was truly a security door. They got it partially open but could not get the lock to break loose. Suddenly we heard the chainsaw start up. Yes, a chainsaw. They were able to take a swoop down the side of the door the deadbolts were on and then kick the door in. Yes, we were finally free. I finally got home around 2:00am and didn't make it to the next party.

Here is the first attempt to get free

We tried to expose the lock to see if we could get it to work, no way

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!we are FREE

Well, that is pretty much how I spent my Chinese New Year. The Year of the Tiger. I see for me it has come in like a tiger. It will be an interesting time. I hope the rest of the year is a little more smooth sailing. Tomorrow it is off to work again. Just a two day week this week and then one more week until I will be coming home for a couple of weeks. This is a crazy country and always something exciting going on. Today it actually snowed about 2 inches. It was a complete blizzard and white out for the whole day. What a great place.

Until next time. Take care and have a great Year of the Tiger.