Wishing all of you a most prosperous Year of the Dog!
It is 22:00 on Chinese New Year’s eve. The city of Shanghai is already enveloped in a fog of gunpowder from all the fireworks that have been set off. I can hear explosions in the distance pretty much continually for the past couple of hours. It’s already woken up one of the Chinettes.
The banquet at the in-laws with about 15 assorted relatives was reasonably simple - about 15 dishes. Meh, to those of you in other threads saying the chinese food in china sucks. Scallops steamed with garlic and black bean sauce, jellyfish, pork knuckle, sweet and sour sauce on fried pomfret fish, fresh water eel in soy sauce, dried sea eel dipped in vinegar, thousand year old eggs, doufu, any number of stir fried veggie dishes, braised pork in beer sauce, and many more that have found a good home in my tummy
At midnight, the city will erupt for at least 20 minutes of deafening fireworks. My favorite are the rockets that shoot up about 20 stories, then explode with a nice big colorful cloud. These come 12 to a box, and you just light the fuse and run. You can (and do) buy strings of firecrackers that are thousands of firecrackers long. There is no regulation either - anyone can buy any amount of fireworks if you’ve got the cash. When it gets close to midnight, you can’t drive. People put those boxes of rockets right out in the street :eek:
anyway, it’s a epicurean pyromanics dream
Still, gong xi fa cai to all those who will be celebrating!