Chinese New Years

Which is worse: Christmas or Chinese New Years?

Lets start with what they have in common:

• Cold weather
• 1 month+ of theme music in stores, seemingly sung by children with developmental handicaps
• Gift giving
• For some people, holiday stress.

Christmas is better than Chinese New Years because:

• Crime does not drastically increase for two months of the year because of Jesus’s birthday
• Stores are only closed one day instead of 7+ days
• Everyone is travelling on Chinese New Years(possibly the largest annual human migration), which makes travelling a nightmare
• On Christmas, Chinese people in every apartment complex in the entire nation are NOT lighting fireworks right in the middle of the complex – at three in the morning – for a 2 hour show rivaling the fireworks display of an American town on July 4th.

Chinese New Years is better than Christmas because:

• No eggnog, but plenty of alcohol
• Long vacation for those who can escape China
• Chinese people usually just give money (in red envelopes) instead of presents, removing the hassle of shopping frenzies. (They also bring boxes of fruit and assorted consumables as presents for parties, as we did when we went to Aiyi’s house)
• Children can light sparklers, and assist in the utilization of Roman Candle target practice.

In other news, the weather has warmed up quite a bit. Today was 60 F. Last week there was a thick sheet of ice on the pond in front of our building and it was going down to 30 F. at night. So although we did not manage to escape to Thailand or Vietnam this year, we generally had a very relaxing time and was able to play a lot of soccer outside and some skating.