Xin Nian Kuaile (Happy Chinese New Year)

It was hard for me to believe that we have celebrated our 2nd Chinese New Year!
We have been living in China for more than a year. It seems so long and yet it also seems to be flying by! It still is so odd to say that I am living in China. How many times have I said- "If you'd told me that I'd be living in China with 2 kids, one of whom is autistic, I would have told you that you had been poorly informed". :)
And yet, here we are. Our simple, yet odd, lives of school, work, ayis, workouts, painting classes, Chinese lessons, searching for good ground beef for weeks at a time, etc. It's so not a normal life! :)

Case in point. GE (Ben's employers) held a Chinese New Year party on Feb 1 that all employees were invited to. Now, this joint venture between GE (the American company) and Avic (the Chinese company) has merged to become Aviage. Most of the employees of this new company are Chinese, with some expats thrown in. Since it was a Chinese New Year party, and most of the employees are Chinese, there was ONLY proper Chinese food offered. I wish I could have taken more pictures but felt it was rude as the guests we were seated with were delighted with the selections, whilst I was horrified. Like, HORRIFIED. Fried jelly fish (I thought it was pad thai), crispy pigeon, baby octopus, snow frog soup, this fish thing that kept looking at me, pork knuckle. The only thing I ate? The spicy cucumber. And even then I only ate 1 slice. :)

Here was the grand ballroom we were in. We were asked to wear traditional Chinese dress. However, I think only the CEO and the expat wives really took that to heart. Most of the Chinese were in pants and a sweater. :)

Our table. Sad Chinese wine and the traditional Tsing Tao beer. Orange juice was flowing like water. :) I know what you're thinking- the food doesn't look that gross. Well, you should have seen it close up, ok? Even Ben barely ate and he'll try almost anything. :)

A close-up of the baby octopus. Piles of suckers just waiting for your chewing...ugh. :/

There was this "amazing" show put on by the uppers showcasing the birth of Aviage.
Everything began in the Year of the Dragon (2012).

The idea is that the official contract with Comac for these planes will be signed in the Year of the Snake (2013). I thought this looked more like a seal, but maybe that was the Tsing Tao talking...

The motto- 'we will spring into flight in the year of the snake'. See the airplane in the symbol? Tricky, right? Sneaky sneaky! (insert rolling eyes here :)

Then the higher-ups came into the ballroom doing a dragon dance (closest to us) and a snake dance (along the far wall- it's blue). Come on now, everyone say "Oooo!" :)

This is me with a friend, Robyn (her husband works with Ben and they live by us), and Liz's son, Riley. Isn't he adorable in his little Chinese outfit?? :) Notice how I embraced the culture in my XXL Chinese dress whilst Robyn refused? Mmm-hmm. Only for my husband would I ever put on something that has a tag labeled XXL. It was rude. :)

At one point in the evening there were awards given out for 'best dressed'. My Ben and Riley (represented by his daddy cause he was asleep) were a few of the men chosen and Liz was one of the women! That's right, I only keep company with the best dressed people. :)

Now this was a sight to behold. Several of the expats volunteered to do a dance during the evening. "Lowai Style" was set to the tune of the Gangnam dance. 'Lowai' is a term for a foreigner. :) There were lyrics with the dance as well. I was crying with laughter through most of it! :) And yes, Ben Lawler was a part of it! There he is on the right-

Here's the actual dance. Above was a repeat performance at the end of the night. Ben Lawler is hard to find bc he's just behind the main front guy on our left. Another friend, Russell, is the guy second from the right, and Ben's other coworker, Albert, is on the far right.

The end of the party- Liz with the hit of the night. :)

 

Other CNY celebrations included parties at Soph's school where they dressed in traditional clothing. Soph was SO happy to get to wear her dress to school. :)

One of the crafts they did for CNY was to make and decorate a snake. Here is hers-



If you recall, last year there was some pretty impressive video we posted of the fireworks going off around town. We have been amazed at the lack of them this year! I have been warning my newcomer friends about the "joys" of CNY fireworks- how they are really neat the first night but on night 13 you just want sleep. However, this year there have been only the standard 2 nights of fireworks- on New Years Eve and 4 nights later when they light off fireworks as an offering and request for wealth in the upcoming year. We've been hearing around town that the government cracked down on the fireworks this year bc the pollution has been really bad- which it has been!
I was wondering about the pollution problems this winter and if they were really that bad. For instance, what is New York City's pollution and is it any better or worse than here? So, I looked into what NYC's pollution levels are on a given day. Using the same measurements (the PMI 2.5 reading), NYC had a pollution level of 50 the other day. Ours was 248. Rarely do I see ours under 100. This winter I've seen it get up to almost 500 twice. :( Another reason I'm ok with moving home in the summer! A big part of the reason why the pollution is so bad in the winter is bc China uses burning coal to heat the country in the winter. Of course, they have no "clean coal" burning here. :)