Thoughts on China

Link to pix in this post… NOTE: I have videos, which are much better, but I can’t upload them from here. Also, this is the same link as from the last post, since it was on the same day…

OK, well, after that day, I was a little frazzled, but I had heard for a day and a half that on Saturday evening, there would be a fireworks show. Of course, there’s no real occasion (like in America, where you won’t see fireworks (except at Disney) if it’s not July 4 or New Year’s Eve), but I had to see what a Chinese fireworks display is like, so I couldn’t miss this opportunity. As you’ll see, I wasn’t disappointed…

I asked several people where the display was, but I couldn’t understand their answers well enough to tell a taxi driver. At least everyone I asked knew what I was asking about, so I thought the taxi drivers would, too. The display was going to be held at 7:30, so I went to get a taxi about 6:40. It took a while to get one that was empty. As soon as I got in, I told the driver I wanted to go to the fireworks show, and he looked at me with a blank stare. It’s funny that everyone else I talked to knew exactly what I meant. After he was obviously not going to get me where I wanted to go, I got out. The next cab was completely different! He knew, as soon as I said 鞭炮 (biānpào, or firecrackers), where I wanted to go and took off. He drove very well (by which I mean he got around a lot of traffic and got me there as fast as humanly possible), while we had as good a conversation as my limited Chinese vocabulary allowed. The cab fair for going all the way across town around all the other traffic that was going to the same event was Y15, but I gave him a Y5 tip for doing such a good job.

The show was a little delayed, but once it started, it blew all of the fireworks shows I’ve seen in the US away. I haven’t been to some of the major ones there, like the one in Louisville, but I have been to a lot and they all paled in comparison to the amount of black powder that was used for this show. It went on for 50 minutes and their were fireworks on each side of the bridge, on a river. As the bridge obstructed my view of the ones that were nearer, I concentrated on the show to the south.

The entire 50 minutes was like the grand finale at a typical show in the US. I only saw two other foreigners there, though the crowd was huge. Hangzhou is a good weekend getaway for people from Shanghai (a city of 20 million people), so it isn’t hard to conceive how this might lead to a large crowd at a fireworks show!

Anyway, I walked all the way back to the hotel, realizing that any attempt at any type of transportation would either be jam packed or stuck in traffic. It was a long walk, but it was nice to have the exercise that I normally don’t get and it was a pleasant walk…so the mixed day ended with a nice fireworks display!