Happy Niu Year

It's New Year's Eve, and the rat will soon hand over the baton to the ox. Many of those born in the year of the ox (so, anyone that is 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96 or 108 years old during the lunar year that starts tomorrow) will wear something red every day to ward off bad luck.

It is though that during these special years (when you've lived through an entire cycle of the 12 years/animals of the Chinese zodiac) you might meet some kind of difficulties or obstacles in your life. Wearing the colour red is thought to be the best way of avoiding the bad luck, or somehow shielding yourself from its effects. (There is a good description of why people do this here.) So there are an awful lot of 11, 23, 35, 47... year olds that will be receiving red clothing and jewellery over the next couple of days. Often, this takes the form of red underwear, or more simply a necklace or bracelet of red thread. (This is sometimes worn around the waist too... what is that called? A waistlet?)

I think some folks will need all the luck they can get over the Spring Festival holiday period. This is the time when fireworks pop in the sky almost continuously for several days. You can here rockets banging off your apartment windows, explosions in the stairwell outside your apartment door. It amazes me that after the Spring festival celebrations that most kids still have ten fingers. The fireworks you can buy on the street here are big. Really big. And cheap.

And apparently the done thing is to launch them from your hands. None of this stick-it-in-the-ground and light-it-with-a-long-fuse technique. Or is it actually fairly safe, and I've just been wrapped up in a little too much cotton wool by life in Britain? The public firework displays can be spectacular, but again, I was able to get a little too close to the action for the liking of my inherent Britishness. These mighty fiery beasts were launched from just a few metres away, exploded directly above peoples' heads, and then the crap (often still on fire) rained down on everyone - brilliant!

Spring festival in Xi'an (2008)