Very sorry about the delays and neglect on this site.  Life has been interesting here as always, but also busy to the max.  I’m currently overworked, taking on more than I can handle.  I’m not collapsing or anything, just neglecting some projects and activities I prefer not to.  I keep saying that it will get better, but when it does, I take on something else!  I’m not complaining, just have to get better at saying, “No”.  On to the story:

So, I share an apartment with a Chinese guy, basically for saving expenses while I build up momentum working for myself.  It’s been working out fine; we traveled together a decent amount (Yunnan province, Cambodia) so I knew what to expect.  Anyway, James invited me to spend three days with his mom and him in a “small” town called Zhongshan, about an hour from Shenzhen.  It turned out to be another excellent opportunity for witnessing Chinese culture firsthand.  I wanted to stay in Shenzhen for the remainder of the vacation too to catch up on work.

Well, I certainly can’t tell the whole story here or I’ll be typing all day and I’ve got several pressing matters to attend to!  But, here are the highlights.

In case you didn’t know, the Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar and basically is the initiation of Spring, according to the lunar calendar.  Makes sense, right?  Spring is the beginning of life and growth.  And Spring, according to the lunar calendar, occurs each year sometime in January or February.  Like Christmas and Thanksgiving, most people will return to their home towns, or wherever their immediate family is living.  As such, it’s a bad time to travel generally, as I experienced when I went to Guilin for my first Chinese New Year (though that’s a trip that’ll never be forgotten).

The Chinese New Year period actually lasts two weeks after the new year, so as I write this, the new year period has just ended.  New Year’s evening was February 13th.

The first thing we did though was to pick up Jame’s mom and go to Macau for the day.  This day trip in the city certainly wasn’t terribly exciting and not nearly as fun as the time Robert and I visited a year ago.  There was no bungee jumping this time either.  But, we did go to the Venetian, something I’d wanted to.  Well, it’s cool to see once, but to me it was just a huge casino with a glorified mall.  The mall is indeed impressive, complete with a Venetian canal running through it for many blocks and a ceiling painted like the sky in perpetual dusk.  All the shops though, of course, are just high end clothing shops.  So – one time is fine.

We went to a large food court which happened to have a “Fat Burger”.  I’d never been to one of these before and decided to get a hamburger and a shake.  I think I shocked James’s mom with this first impression.  Not to worry, I left Zhongshan three days later with her trying to find me a wife.  She spoke no English, but we had a good time communicating.  More on that later…  The rest of Macau was pretty uneventful.  We just wandered around look at other casinos, visited some of the usual scenic spots that I had been to before.  We returned to Zhongshan in the early evening to prepare for the New Year’s Eve the next day.

We started New Years’ Eve with an excellent Cantonese breakfast in a hotel restaurant overlooking a misty lake surrounded by wooded peaks.  Bright red Chinese characters mounted on the hillside in the distance announced that we were looking into a natural preserve.  Despite the characters, the scene was quite beautiful.

It’s common for everyone to buy freshly cut flowers and some plants the day before the New Year.  The three of us took Jame’s car in search of flower markets around town.  It was at this point that I realized just how big Zhongshan is.  While it’s much smaller than Shenzhen, it’s still a million+ population city.  Unlike Shenzhen, of course, it’s a much older city and has a very old downtown area.  We visited there for a while too passing through a large Buddhist monestary.

Finding parking at one of the flower markets proved to be a challenge and it wasn’t until we arrived at the third market that we found enough places to park the car.  It’s hard to describe the flower market without being there, but I had the idea of using my iPhone to record the sounds as well.  Turns out that the sounds capture it pretty well.  Press the play button below and listen to the sounds while looking at the pictures.  I can tell you it was typically chaotic.  Cars, motorcycles, trucks going here and there, all of them dodging people and animals.  Unlike Shenzhen, there are few foreigners and I got lots of stares and smiles.  I even heard, “Lian wai lao wai lai zhe li mai hua”.  “Even foreigners are coming here to buy flowers!”

I had forgotten:  I had indeed spent a Chinese New Year with a Chinese family my very first year, the year that I went to Guilin.  I spent it with Michael, my friend and colleague from Microsoft, and his family.  That evening featured a great meal prepared by his wife and passing the time watching TV, occasional fireworks, and entertaining his young son with English.  The next day, we went to Guilin.  The evening of Chinese New Year is really nothing more than that, and it’s been described to me multiple times by multiple people that way:  just stay home, eat dinner, watch TV. I guess it’s the TV part that gets me, but the evening is pretty simple.

Same thing again this year.  We enjoyed a really tasty meal together.  I then prepared for all of us to spend the evening in the living room just passing the time chatting and watching TV.  Except, my roommate James has a habit of constantly playing World of Warcraft.  This turned out to be true for New Years Eve as well.  And, playing the game (as my friend Davide and I call it now) also involves just staying in one’s room alone.  My protestations that he should not leave his mom alone on New Years Eve proved fruitless and so I decided that it was my duty to spend the New Year keeping his mom company.

I can’t spend all the time covering the details, but I had a great time communicating in Chinese, watching various shows (including the NBA for a while).  Before the New Year was finished, Jame’s mom was making phone calls to various young eligible ladies that she knew and would pass the phone to me.  I found this really funny, and entertaining.  Seemed like a lot of the girls were shocked too.

The next day featured a big party at various rich factory bosses houses.  James is pretty well connected in his town and was invited to a party at the house of the big boss who owned the factory where he used to work.  This proved to be another amazing visual and aural treat (enjoy the sound file below!).  We, along with other managers at the factory, gathered at the lobby of the factory.  Seems the custom is that we all gather there and then go to the bosses house as a unit.  James gave me all the manners lessons that I needed:  just smile at new people, clasp your hands together and say, while shaking your clasped hands, “Gong xi fa cai”, which is basically a wish for a prosperous new year.  If you’re unmarried, you should say this before and married person does.  Doing so will basically entitle you to a “hong bao” or “red envelope”.  The envelop is ornate with lucky Chinese characters and contains money inside.  Always a single bill, always fresh and crisp.  At first, I thought this was odd and uncomfortable, basically like asking for money.  But, after I saw all the fun and ebullience in it, it became easy.  All told, I collected about 25 hong baos.

The day was cloudy, rainy, and cold.  We formed a convey of cars and made our way to the boss’s house, a big, multi-level rock structure surrounded by a high wall, which contained a small yard which was mostly taken up by a driveway.  The driveway was covered in the red paper ash, obviously from numerous fireworks the night before.  The cars parked were typical: a Porsche SUV, 5-series BMW.  I refer to the house because that seems to be what’s popular – these large concrete buildings full of marble-like tile (I suppose it’s real marble), and, despite the Chinese saying they’re “afraid” (“women zhong guo ren pa leng!”) of cold, all the windows and doors were open allowing the dampness and chill to come in.  What kept it warm though was all the people and hot air from all the bellowing and wishing each other a happy New Year.

The boss emerged from downstairs, beaming.  He was well-dressed but otherwise plain.  Apparently, he was able to buy the factory from the government, when the government finally decided it was time for the nation to get out of poverty and privatize.  Good move there; he’s done well.  He was interested in me, being the only foreigner around and he laughed loudly as we shook hands and took pictures.  We all wished him well, but no hong baos were forthcoming.  Instead, he whipped out a few stacks of 100s from his coat and started passing them out.  Then, more yells followed as someone carried a rickety wooden table high above their head and placed it squarely in the middle of the main room.  Most of the guys surrounded the table, James and myself included, and started gambling with our new 100s (listen to the audio file below…you can hear someone practicing their English with “No!” too).

The game was dead simple, though it took me a few rounds to understand what was going on – each person was dealt three cards.  They all represented their face values, except for suits, which were 10.  You basically just summed them up, then dropped the 10′s place (for example, a total of 17 would be a “7″ final score).  The highest number won.  The boss always revealed his cards last, and very slowly.  Loud yells every time.

I ended up losing all my money, then dipped into my wallet and pulled out one of my own 100s.  I then proceeded to win it all back plus about 200.  I realized that I was totally nervous dipping into money that I didn’t get through a hong bao, but I figured it would be a good exercise in risk taking (not having a job and all – see the connection?).  Looking back, I should have been much more bold and gambled on much more.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

…

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

OK, next time!

We ended up also going to other subordinate big boss houses and experienced similar activities.  Towards lunch time (oh yes, this all takes place in the morning!), it was announced that food was arriving soon!  I wondered what this other big boss would provide for us, besides the usual snacks of small candies and fruits.  Some minutes later, large cardboard boxes arrived…with the McDonald’s emblem on them and labeled “French Fries”.  Sure enough, they were opened up to reveal French Fries and chicken wings.

Completely satisfied with the Chinese New Year, I caught a bus back to Shenzhen that afternoon while James proceeded to go on to Sichuan for traveling.  No traveling for me this time.  Soon, I hope.