Christmas In the Eastern Hemisphere

***preface- it took a while to get the pictures attached due to internet problems, so I have actually made it all the way through Christmas day. Last night I was able to meet up ewith my family online, and the morning after I am still so full from last nights meal that I can't eat breakfast so it is clear to me that I have had a very successful Chinese Christmas.***

The holiday season has arrived and it is always a weird time when living abroad, especially in a none western country. You don't even really realize that the holiday is coming, bc there is no sign of it outside, apart from those sly shopping malls that have learned that they can boost sales by throwing a Santa poster on their doorway. But that doesn't create a christmassy atmosphere, and no matter how commercialized Christmas has become in the US, there is still an palpable element of excitement leading up to the holiday in the US that is absent and missed here.

Fortunately since I have been around this area for a while I have a group of friends, and they are sensitive (sometimes a little too sensitive) to my lack of western comforts over here. So last night I wasn't short of invitations to partake in various activities. These activities ranged from eating dumplings, apples, singing songs, and dancing the rabbit dance(if you don't know you better axe somebody!) with my 18 year old students(pass, thanks), going out to a KTV(correct pronounciation is Kay-Tee-Way, BTW) with a friend and drinking beer until I forget my own nationality, and finally going to a tea house to snack and watch some performances. As tempting as that second offer might be sometimes I chose number 3. I usually love going to tea houses, they are usually a pretty relaxed atmosphere where you can see some traditional Chinese arts, e.g. folk music using traditional Chinese instruments, traditional songs, or shadow puppet performances of famous stories or operas. I thought that kind of relaxing atmosphere would be fitting for Christmas eve, a night in China known as ping an ye or "Peaceful night." Of course, as usual, nothing on the night went as I expected, and it was awesome.

(quick interlude about a new Christmas custom invented here in China that I think is pretty cool. Like I mentioned Christmas eve is called ping an ye here, ping an meaning peace. The same character that represents ping in peace also happens to be the first character in the word for apple{ping guo}. So what has developed is a tradition of apple exchanging on Christmas eve in a way of wishing friends a peaceful holiday, and everyday. And I really do mean everyday there that wasn't a misprint. Never had anyone "wish you happy everyday" before, come to China they do it all the time)

The hot party started out at about 6PM. I was a bit late in arriving, which was costly since my door prize ended up being an advertisement for some wedding photo company and not a sweet heart shaped pillow that the first person to arrive received( the first person to arrive was a friend of mine and ended up giving me the sweet pillow, double score!!), and I got treated to a chorus of "friendly" hello shouts by very "friendly" people who I have never seen before as I made my way to my table. The layout of the party was interesting, as the food was served in a sort of buffet. There was not really any real food there, just a lot of snacks, which is pretty standard for a tea house setting. Buffet's are new to this area, and everyone gets so worried about the food running out (which it did, but only because people took way more than they needed) that it creates a bit of pandemonium in the buffet line. Take the following snaps, that were taken literally ten seconds a part, as an example:

The party started out relatively normally with a girl playing the guzheng( I know there are a ton of closet guzheng fans out there) a few songs, and some random games. One game was a quiz game that I would have absolutely dominated had I taken part in it. The questions included 1)who was Jesus' (human) father, 2)Santa Claus is known as St. what? and3) The legend of Santa Claus originated from what country? But I didn't take part and so had to gloat to myself in the back of the room while I quietly threw down ganbei's with some friends and snacked on moon pies.

But by the time it hit 8 o'clock I think everyone started thinking this peaceful night was a little bit too peaceful, it needed an extra gear of awesome added. The customers didn't come out tonight just to relax, they came to party, and by party I mean watch other people perform while sitting and watching. Cue the high school girls doing a cheerleader dance while the rest of the workers prep for the two hottest shows of the evening. It was a bizarre experience to be sitting in a room of mostly families and all the sudden see teenage girls bouncing around in tight clothes with techno blasting- none too comfortable. But soon they were gone and we moved on to a kid who must have been about 18 years old screaming at the top of his lungs to the point that it was really difficult to understand what he was saying. His act was actually remarkably lame, almost irritating, and really not worth mentioning in general. He only had one moment of utter brilliance that changed my opinion of his whole performance. He took two open 1 liter bottles of beer and shook them vigorously, then did a flip, using his hands to help him flip. In the course of his motion he slammed the bottles of beer upright on the stage floor. That last jolt while he was doing his flip helped the already agitated beer bottles to explode into a 6 ft. high fountain of beer that lasted for about 5 seconds while he danced around to techno with no shirt on. I don't know why exactly, but this struck me as one of the dopest party tricks I had ever seen. So simple and yet so effective.

But that wasn't even the most awesome part of the evening, nay. Moments later a few friends asked me if I knew what a zhu ru was, I hadn't a clue. They said "really little" and made measurements with their hands using the ground asw reference. I didn't have any idea what they were referring to until a dwarf(this is the nicer way of referring to a little person right? I am not familiar with the most PC way to refer to midgets) walked out on the stage to perform. I couldn't help thinking, "well this is a bit unexpected." The dwarf then put on a 20 minute show for everyone in the room. He ate fire, pierced the skin of his elbow, attached a hook and used it to pick up a five gallon container of gasoline, and finally as his coup de grace picked up an entire bicycle with his mouth and started spinning around. Not like a small persons bicycle either, a normal large bicycle. I don't know if any of you have ever seen a dwarf pirouetting with a bicycle in his mouth before, but I can assure you, it is one of the most beautiful sites you'll ever find in this crazy, crazy world.

(my only regret is that I couldn't manage pictures of the action, my seat was too far in the back, so my attempts couldn't come out clearly, and I was petrified of going up front bc there were various bastards that had had a bit to drink and were eager to talk at me and take pictures...alas)

I just had to quickly get out these events on the blog for fear of forgetting. I have had a lot of trouble getting time to blog recently, and the new year is coming, and with it the last entry of '08 for the blog, and also the LAST ENTRY OF ALL TIME for Experience Zaozhuang. It has been a fun ride but unfortunately my blog has been contaminated and must be destroyed, I'll explain more in that entry, until then I wish you all a Holiday season filled with peace, love, brotherhood, and fire-breathing super-dwarves!