Chinese New year just passed. It is now the Year of the Snake. Being a snake year guy, I might actually have a good year here. We passed the New Year right here in Shanghai, amid gobs of food and din of fireworks. The New Year Celebration is about 15 days - from New Moon to Full Moon. Chinese Employees get a week off in that period. It is commonly a family time, with grand feasts, fireworks, and visiting or being visited by relatives.
On the first day we went the home of the grandparents of one of our Chinese friends, Winnie, at their invitation. It was a small apartment in Pudong. We were greeted warmly 
found our spot in the small living room with her folks. We were treated to dish after dish of real Shanghai New Year's fare. Starting with small round black-sesame dumplings, which you are supposed to eat for prosperity in the coming year, dish after dish came out of the kitchen. We were not allowed to have an empty plate at any time, as Winnie kept spooning onto our small plates portions of duck, various portions of sliced meat (mostly pork I think), pickled salads, various fish dishes in various tasty sauces, whole shrimp, many various tasty vegetable dishes, jellyfish, pork ribs, rice, soup, green tea, wine, orange soda, on and on for 3 hours. It was all delicious, but I could not eat another bite. Wo bao le! (I am full!) They were gracious and smiled as I tried to get across a few comments in a poor version of Westernized Mandarin. There was a lot of food left over, and they helped us pack a large leftover plate for further munching at home. It reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving dinner with my family in the US. In the end we waddled out to the street to flag a taxi amid the firecrackers going off for the first day of the celebration.
After a couple days of continuous firecrackers popping everywhere with the noise and frequency building to a crescendo, we spent the actual New Year's Eve at another friend's in one of the large domestic high rises. We are not the big party types, though I am sure some wild and crazy celebrations were happening in every hotel and night club in town. The taxi ride over to our friend, Stephanie's, at 8 in the evening gave us every indication of a Chinese New Year in full swing. In the major intersections, people were outside setting off their fireworks or flagging taxis. Multicolored sparks showered the streets on all sides. Outside of many buildings were tattered piles of red paper from the strings of firecrackers popping in the new year. The smell of gunpowder and clouds of smoke wafted through air at every intersection.
Upon arrival at friends 27th floor apartment, we relaxed a while, waiting for the neighborhood display outside. We continued to hear the booms and pops and from the living room window, could see green, purple, and white bursts of color and loud reports over the street below us from the other folks in the neighborhood getting warmed up for the big event at midnight. Food, candy, tea were out at our small party and a small tree with red envelopes attached to each branch was on display as a good omen for prosperity in the new year.
A few minutes before midnight, we went out to the street. Red lanterns hung in the archway from the complex into the main street. Already thick clouds of acrid smoke and piles of red paper and burning bottle rocket launchers choked the entrance to the complex. Several large strings of firecrackers were crackling and bottle rockets were booming from the street into the night air. In the sky you could see firework displays from nearby streets that rivaled what we might see from the city event on the 
4th of July in the US. These were not the city works - these were just set off by the local neighborhood families. We could not hear a word spoken amidst the din, which was getting louder the closer we got toward midnight. Trying to run through the entrance to get a view from the street we were assaulted by thick wads of exploded paper and sparks raining down on us.
At midnight, a barrage of bottle rockets launched from cartons on the street by our neighborhood crew and nearby streets lit up the sky. Multiple strings of crackers exploded all around driving a profusion of smoke, paper, fire and thunder into the air around us. It just kept going this way for 30 minutes before is began to taper off. Paper several inches deep and burning paper cartons used to launch the rockets were thick on the street. Shell-shocked and a little weary, we made our way back inside to recover our ear drums, brush the red paper from our coats, and reflect on the coming year.
