Val's China 101: December 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

December in Review

THINGS I LOVE DECEMBER

1. Skyping with my family and with Jon

2. Visiting friends in Shanghai and Hefei one last time :* )

3. Hot cocoa with Baily’s and Kahlua

4. Watching the Swan Lake ballet performed by a Russian company in Hefei's cool performance hall (it wasn't the Nutcracker, but it was still Tchaikovsky and it was still awesome!)

5. Packing up all my stuff and getting ready to travel!

6. Sharing Christmas traditions and candy with students

7. My new best friends: the casts of How I Met Your Mother and Gossip Girl

8. Double Chocolate Stout beer (found some in Shanghai and that was the gift I opened for myself on Christmas morning ; )

9. Christmas dinner with my students’ families and with my Chinese family

10. Christmas songs and decorations filling up my apartment

THINGS I MISS

1. Being home for the holidays

2. Christmas dinner, drinks and desserts

3. Christmas cocktail parties

4. The Christmas Ship at Richmond Beach

5. Making Christmas cookies

6. Watching Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story, Little Women, It’s A Wonderful Life and Elf and . . . . well, you get the idea

7. Trying to catch Santa on the Fire truck on Christmas morning

8. EGG NOG!!!!!!!!!!!!

9. Get Fit With Fido (I miss running and I miss dogs . . . . )

10. My friends and family

Friday, December 23, 2011

Roses are red, violets are blue, Sunshine is yellow, what color are you? Apply this question to a Nation and some are easy to answer. Greenland is white. Iceland is Green. Switzerland is beige or some sort of neutral tone. And all the Commie countries are red, with China the most red of them all, right? Wrong!

Admittedly, China does seem to have scarlet fever when it comes to decorating things or assigning symbolic meaning. Anytime I wear a red dress or shirt, my Chinese friends will tell me how beautiful I look and that red is a very lucky color. The color red is associated with courage, loyalty, honor, success, fortune, fertility, happiness, passion, and summer. Before the influence of Western white weddings, brides traditionally wore red. Now they often wear both; changing from their frilly white dress they wear during the ceremony into the glamorous red, bedazzled dress for the reception.

During Chinese New Year people give out gifts of money in red envelopes. The flag is red. Students often wear red kerchiefs around their necks. The fireworks that are lit off at any time of the day or night to ward away evil spirits all leave behind red confetti-like debris. Red carpet is rolled out onto the sidewalk anytime a new store is open. The list goes on and on. And yet, with all the red one is bombarded with all the time in China, there is still a color (well, series of colors technically) that will symbolize China to me more than red ever will. Neon.

Go to any city in China and there is a distinct feeling of being trapped in an ‘80s music video. There are twinkling neon lights everywhere, and indeed entire buildings are outlined in various flashing colors and lights. Of course, all the shops blast Chinese pop-songs out into the streets, so that might contribute to the music video feel a bit as well.

I don’t know the reason for their obsession with bright lights, but I’ve certainly got my theories. Maybe it’s because there are so many people, and so many buildings and so much of the same, that it’s nice to have something stand out a bit. Maybe it’s because the skies are often shrouded in heavy, murky gray smog that it’s nice to get some color. Maybe it’s a natural progression from their mastery of pyrotechnics (they did invent gunpowder after all) that they would become masters of anything that could light up the skies.

Whatever the reason for the lights, I’m hooked. And I have to admit, at this time of year when I’m missing out on all of the holiday traditions back home, it’s nice to know I’m not getting any shortage of Christmas lights.