It is easy to tell when a holiday is coming in Qingdao. The first sign is the red boxes in the grocery store. Giving gifts is a big deal for the Chinese and gifts should be wrapped in red. One of the most interesting options I saw in RTMart was a very elegant box containing three containers of instant oatmeal. The mid-autumn festival is coming, but we don’t really know what that means. I hope to learn more in the next several days.
The other sign is fireworks. They began on Saturday evening. It sounded like we were living in a combat zone. We couldn’t see anything, but it seemed like from every direction there was the popping of strings of fire crackers. They were loud, but then came the big booms. I have no idea what they were exploding, but the noise was really loud in the apartment where we rarely hear anything. This continued all through Sunday and then really picked up as the sun went down. Down by the harbor we could see flashes of color in the sky. They were interesting to watch, but not very impressive. I was reading, and not really paying much attention, but finally got up to take a look. About a block away someone was setting off an aerial display. Before that one ended another one began in another apartment complex.
I asked J.D. if these were group efforts. They are not. He said that at Chinese New Year every household buys a box that creates a display equivalent to a few minutes at our public 4th of July celebrations. I can begin to imagine what that must be like as we listened to our neighbors light up the sky. We went to sleep to a serenade of explosions that were still going when I made my nighttime visit to the bathroom. It has been quiet today, so we’ll see if there is a repeat performance this evening. It has been a beautiful day. The rain of the past few days has cleared the air and we’ve actually seen blue sky.
