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.

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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!”

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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.

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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.

We ate many meals together.  Peter and Chris leaning more towards the Northeastern style cuisine featuring dumplings and me preferring the spicier offerings of the Sichuan and Hunan regions.  Our final meal together was at a fairly small Sichuan restauarant.  Peter heard a suggestion from the waitress of what he though was “sweet chicken”.  The conversation was too fast for me to catch, unfortunately, for I knew what this “sweet chicken” really was.  Actually, it was “field chicken”.  Both “sweet” and “field” have the exact same sounds:  “tian” tone 2.  But, the characters are completely different and thus the meaning is completely different.

“Sweet Chicken”, aka “Qin1 Wa1″,  is another word for “Frog”!  I’ve grown to like frog actually and this was a tasty dish, but it was a bit to realistic for Chris’s liking.  The bodies of the poor frogs were almost intact.  The heads were missing thankfully, but the cute little hands and feet were still intact.  The underside looked otherwordly too; “Alien” was the term that Peter used.  Chris didn’t eat too much of this dish, but at least it made for some good pictures.

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Although the movie starts a little slowly, it really picks up about one third the way in.  The main characters (the two mountain climbers and the one female love interest) are all solid actors, well directed, and well casted.  The director did a great job at capturing the climb.  Everything was so convincingly shot, it makes you wonder if they actually filmed some of it on a real mountain.  I supposed they must have used CGI, but it was used so sparingly and realistically that it must be commended.  The contrast between the plight of the mountain climbers and that of the rich bystanders makes the movie so much more emotionally riveting.  Some people in the audience cried.

I enjoyed the movie very much.  Indeed “the CGI” included some of the best mountain videography I’ve ever seen.  (FYI, the movie was shot on the mountain! I recognized much of it, having hiked underneath the north face two summers ago.  Was it really that long ago?)  Michael, yeah, it looks doable!  :-p

Catching up on sleep.  Well, maybe I wasn’t catching up, but I certainly slept a ton, typically 9 hours a night.  Also, for some reason, I can’t adjust to the time in one day when traveling directly to Atlanta.  Traveling to Seattle or back to China is never a problem, but it takes me about five days fully adjust when coming to Georgia.  And just when I was starting to enjoy getting up at 5am and working for two hours before going back to bed for another couple of hours, I started sleeping through the night.  Can’t win ‘em all.

Accompanying my mom to the charity food shelter. Actually, I don’t know what the official name of it is, and I certainly don’t claim to be Mr. Charity, but I did enjoy spending the afternoon bagging up groceries to give to the less fortunate folk in town.  I also enjoyed eaves-dropping on the counselor talking with the visitors, learned a lot.  The quote of the day goes to a rambunctious woman named Wanda who quipped to the counselor, “Now this man we elected president said he was gonna get us jobs!  I don’t see no jobs!!!”

A typical Christmas Eve Dinner with family and friends: Beverly and Ed, Matthew and parents.  Though my favorite dish (Beef Wellington) wasn’t served, it was still the best meal of the year. Topped off with perfect bananas foster toasted in a huge fireball.  The picture on the left shows the main course – dang, what’s the name.  Andouille sausage, shrimp, and fetuchini in a rich sauce (what was in that sauce?).  Now, that’s quality!

Hiking around Pine Mountain, Georiga.  Wow, it was a big hike – 4.5 miles and maybe 500 feet of elevation. Well, I disrespected the mountain by wearing my casual shoes and not bringing any water, so it was fitting that I felt tired afterwards.  Scenery was nice.  Would be fun to explore the whole area one day, maybe camp out too.

My dad and I visited the new National Infantry Museum. The building is beautiful and the exhibits are even better.  It’s very well-organized in sections, though winding your way within the sections can be confusing.  We easily spent 2.5 or 3 hours here, even though it felt a little rushed.  Why not make a day trip of it and split the exhibits with lunch?  Yeah, that sounds good.

I always try to take in lots of free movies while in town. I’m sad to say that this was a relatively slow year in terms of movies.  Avatar was mostly a disappointment. Here are my reviews (out of 5 stars):

• Invictus – 3.0 stars.  I had high hopes for this one, but it’s no “Gran Torino”.  My main problem with this movie was that there was no real story arc.  You could watch the first 20 minutes and pretty much have a sense of the entire movie.  The rugby scenes were good and Morgan Freeman was excellent.
• Law Abiding Citizen – 2.5 stars.  Certainly not a great movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed the action and fun. It certainly leaned on the sadistic side which made it hard to cheer for the protagonist, though I appreciated his intentions.
• 2012 – 3.0 – A surprisingly high ranking given the director’s sad history.  But, I was stunned at visual effects.  The movie would have been a solid thumbs up had it not been for a horrendous close quarters, underwater scene at the end.  Just horribly filmed, edited, and all together stupid.
• Avatar – 2.5 stars. Welcome to the most overrated movie of the year!  Yes, I enjoyed it very much, but the story is “Dances with Wolves”.  The effects were great, but not as great as people are making out to be.  I still think Lord of the Rings looks better.  Star Wars Episode III too, but it’s easier to animate machinery than people.  It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes all over again!  But, realize, I’m rating on a scale here!  Expectations play a big role.
• Sherlock Holmes – 3.0 stars.  I fell asleep a couple of time in the first half, but woke up to proclaim, “It’s better than Avatar”!  It’s obviously more in-yo’-face than typical Sherlock Holmes, but they held on to enough good stuff to make it a fun movie. Got to see Jason, my pro wrestling friend, too.
• Up in the Air – 3.5 stars.  I enjoyed this movie a lot, very good story-telling and acting.  Ending was refreshing, though not happy.

Airplane Movies (out of 5 stars):

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – 2 stars.  Yeah, I’m sure the book was really good but this movie was a real yawner.  Bo-ring!
• Inglorious Basterds – 4 stars.  The surprise hit of the holiday for me.  I normally don’t like Tarantino movies, but I loved the story-telling in this one.  Brad Pitt’s character was great too, very funny.

Cranking on work.  I know I’m doing what I want now because I woke up each day excited to crank out more work on my two big projects. I parked myself at the kitchen table each morning very early.  It became a ritual.

Jamming with Chris.  Met up with an old friend from high school and jammed together on guitar, the first time since “Sittin’ There”, an old hit of ours.  We did a version of Frozen Taco’s “Sacrificed” which I hope he will add a solo to soon (I’ll post it when it’s available).  He also produced a cartoon that I drew in either the 8th or 9th grade. It was the earliest “work” of mine (outside of really early school stuff that hangs around my folks’ house) that I’d ever seen.  Really funny getting a look into that early period.

Working on brand new FT with Matthew.  This was interesting and fun as always.  And despite only using an electric guitar with no amplifier (and a neck that needs attention), we worked on another tune, old school style, where Matt only brings lyrics and an idea about how to sing the song and I try to find music to fit it. It’s always a give-and-take progress and the final product was different from what we started with.  When will the final version be available?  I have no idea.  The songs that we did this summer should have been finished by now; I’ve just been too busy to finish off the guitar work. Sounds like a project for me over Chinese new Year.

Of course, spending time with fambly and friends is always the best, but I have to call out special attention to baby Caroline.  I was amazed at how fast she progressed “babily” in the short weeks I was there.  She went from “inchworming” for locomotion to a full on crawl in just one week.  Not too shabby.