The Clan's China Adventure, Episode 20: Chinese New Year in the Country

Happy Year of the Monkey!

This time of year has proven to be interesting for a second year in a row, especially since I've had to do so much travel recently.

First, Jim and I traveled again to Chengdu, followed nearly immediately by a trip (by myself) to the U.S. for training in good ol' sub-zero (Fahrenheit, mind you) Cedar Rapids!

Yep, it's cold

On the plus side,  I got to ride on this bad boy to the Airport, cutting my usual 45 minute travel time to the airport to a mere 15 minutes, including getting lost at the station!

Pretty dern fast.

Fortunately, I got to spend a few days in Florida, too, where it was much warmer:

But, by the time I got back to Shanghai, it was cold again! In fact, record cold levels for the city. Our pipes even froze and we had no water for several days, something that was literally inconceivable to me in the past!

Not typical in Shanghai

Of course, Chinese New Year also means Chinese New Year parties!

Last year, we hosted the family at a restaurant for Chinese New Year. This year, we decided to do what most other families do - go back "home" for Chinese New Year. To be honest, I was actually quite excited at first - it's often said that Chinese New Year is more festive and traditional in the countryside. In fact, this year, fireworks were completely forbidden within the outer ring of Shanghai, which meant that we wouldn't have seen any fireworks this year had we spent it in the city! Chinese New Year in the countryside usually meant lots of fireworks, endless food, and lots of celebration!

Alas, we would be sorely disappointed in my first Chinese New Year in the Wuxi countryside. For starters, the highly publicized "Chinese New Year Dinner" at my in-laws was really, really low key. In fact, I'm pretty sure when we usually go back on non-Chinese New Year, the meal was better. Secondly, there was no real family togetherness at all - most everyone ran off and did their own thing the second they were finished with the one dinner we shared. For the rest of the two and a half days, we were pretty much on our own as Ya's brother's family went to Jiangxi, while her mom and dad spent most of the time doing odd jobs like selling eggs and fixing things - things they pretty much do all year long.

Fortunately, we did get to set off some fireworks, which was a lot of fun for the kiddos:

Magic!

We also decided to go and visit the nearby and newly developed "Nian Hua Wan" resort area, a Buddhism-themed shopping resort. The environment was quite nice, especially in the nice weather we had that day, but I think the 80 RMB admission fee is a bit steep for something that amounts to a mini-Tokyo temple area (which would be free to visit in Japan). Still, we got some nice phone-tography out of it!

It's really quite stunning how hard it is to teach some folks how to take a photo... This was the best of 4 tries I tried letting MIL take so that I could actually be in one of the photos...

So, that was it for our countryside Chinese New Year experience. I can't say I'm looking forward to doing it again next year...

Until then, here's to better adventures in the coming months!

The Clan's China Adventure, Episode 15: New Year Party Season

Well it's finally the Year of the Sheep - 10 days in in fact! Time to do a little catch up before we get into the meat of our presentation today!

Ever since the start to 2015, many of my colleagues kicked off the new year with visits to China - the project is starting to heat up! And when colleagues visit, I tend to spend a bit of time in the tour guide business:

The Real Ronald McDonald (inside joke)

Derek's first visit to China was a broad experience, consisting of hotpot...

... and Karaoke, among other activities!

But our foreign guests left too soon, without getting a chance to experience the biggest holiday of the Chinese universe - Chinese New Year!

We started to really see the Chinese New Year spirit kicking towards the end of January:

Lots of Red, traditional garb, and sheep could be found all around town!

Perhaps the most spirit is experienced in the form of New Year Parties, of which there are often several one attends!

For example, there was one at Fifi's school:

At work parties, there are often activities and performances. I attended a New Year Party in Wuxi with our JV with such events:


I even got in on the action myself a bit, demonstrating some of my skillz that killz!



Of course, there was a party for my company too, where, as is typically the case for Chinese New Year parties, there was lots of drinking and lots of nice lucky draw prizes! (I didn't get one though...)

Lots of Apple products - like this iPad Air...

...And this Macbook Air!

The top brass drawing the final prizes of the evening...

Of course, any good CNY party has to have KTV!

Up next, we celebrate Chinese New Year... in China!