Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year 
Last Monday I was awoken by the sounds of explosions going off at midnight. I smelled smoke and saw flashes of fire out my window. In my half-asleep daze, I was sure there was a gun battle raging in the Chinese factory next to the monastery. Machine guns rattled and retaliated. Someone threw a grenade. What to do? Sleepily I reproached myself, "Jen, you really should have thought up a plan for a situation like this." I did the only sensible thing when there is a gang war or military scheme unraveling across the street and rolled over and fell back asleep, dreaming that there were tanks rolling down the four lane highway near my house from the border.

The gun battles raged throughout Mae Sot all through the week and luckily I was in Umphiem most of the time so actually managed several nights of good sleep and preserved the integrity of my ear drums. There were no guns involved, obviously and no war going on, only unparalleled firecrackers of incredible power. They come on long strings and go off in clouds of smoke and fire, leaving behind shards of red paper which littered the streets all week. I got caught in a crowd and ended up next to one one morning. Even with my hands over my ears I was in pain. When the little explosions have gone off (the machine gun fire), there are two big ones at the end, (the grenade launchers I heard at midnight).

Chinese New Year was on Wednesday and the firecrackers have been going nonstop day and night from Monday until Saturday. In Bangkok, I am told there are over 3 million people gathered in the squares of China Town celebrating with the largest dragon dance outside of Beijing in the world. In Mae Sot the dragons dancing through town on Saturday morning were quite small but lively. Teams of young men wearing yellow danced through the streets wheeling huge drums, playing tambourines and cymbals and following the dragons. They left behind them clouds of smoke and perfumed incense. Shopkeepers were sweeping up the red papers for days. Every corner I turned yielded another dragon, another crowd of dancers. On a parallel street a parade passed with middle aged women in short skirts and a marching band. There was a sense of celebration and excitement and the thrill of the unexpected. Dragons entered shops, eating paper offerings and bestowing luck. One winked at me as it went by and the boys all capered before my camera. Everyone was out on the streets smiling in a blur of red and yellow and a swirl of smoke that tasted of gunpowder.

Happy New Year!