And so ends another Spring Festival. It was the end of the Year of the Dog and the beginning of the Year of the Pig.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was content to stay in Beijing and putter around my apartment rather than galavanting to some other place. I was happy that I didn’t have to pack a bag and, furthermore, I knew there would be things to do in my own neighbourhood. The one big change from last year’s Spring Festival in my neighbourhood was the fact that the shopping mall near my place was open this year. I contains a number of places, best of all a couple of cafes and a Tex-Mex restaurant (complete with food specials from Monday to Thursday!)
Before Spring Festival proper started, I dutifully got my haircut (xiūjiǎn 修剪, “trimmed”) since once the Spring Festival starts you’re not supposed to cut your hair within the first month since the Chinese say it’s bad luck and could lead to misfortune for your uncle.. I’ve always wondered why this is but I assume it has something to do with not letting people who’ve been celebrating the new year cut your hair, ie, they may have had a few too many shots of baijiu and may not be too steady with the scissors. In any event, I got a hair cut. A friend put up some good luck paper cuttings on my door and window before taking off to her hometown for the rest of the vacation.
Spring Festival started the usual way: with the slow closure of shops around town before the ultimate quiet settled upon Beijing on Monday evening. That day I did a final sweep of the floors and washed clothes which are both no-no’s after the Spring Festival starts because you could wash away the luck. (And again, I think it may have to do with the fact that people often get hong baos or “red envelopes” with money inside, and that money is made of paper (typically) and so if you wash your clothes, you may also wash the money, and possibly even your passport, which is especially important since most people are travelling during the new year’s break to visit their family. So, don’t wash or clean anything. Just leave it as is until Spring Festival is properly over!)
Finally, as Monday night descended, the popular CCTV Spring Festival gala started at 730pm and it is this program that people watch with their families leading up to midnight, at which time they usually have jiaozi (because they’re shaped like silver-ingots of time’s past).
I didn’t make it midnight but didn’t have to in order to hear the fireworks, those started around 10 pm or so. Since fireworks are banned in Beijing within the confines of the Fifth Ring Road, I could only hear the fireworks instead of see them.
And so ended the Year of the Dog and thus began the Year of the Pig.
But the other things that happens during the Spring Festival in Beijing are Temple Fairs (miáohuì, 描绘) throughout the city. I seemed to have retraced the steps I made last year, visiting LongTanHu Park and the ever-favourite Ditan Park’s Temple Fairs. The one new one I visited was the Chaoyang International Fair, which was a little bit different from the other two.
CHAOYANG PARK INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
Although still mainly a Chinese New Year’s fair, this fair in particularly boasts international acts on showcase rather than traditional Chinese dances and what not. From what I could tell, the main event was a comedic trio of guys dressed as mimes and they performed both music and gag-related acts. The other feature of this festival were dressed-up foreigners, all of whom had an entourage… and probably not by choice. For whatever reason (I could probably hazard a guess), these costumed performers always had a tail of two or three Bao An, or security guards.
Chaoyang Park itself is a massive park and winds itself around a few lakes. The main portion of the festival itself was held in the southern region of the park, near to Chaoyang Park subway station (exit B). Outside of the Western border of the park is an area called ‘Solana’ which is another foreign-restaurant-heavy area and shopping complex. To the North and East are residential areas while to the south leads to the CBD area.
Along with the usual temple fair food, games and attractions, and trinkets for sale, the park also boasted a “winter world: in which there was a snow slide, skating and camel rides. Camels? Yep. Camel rides. In winter.
Dunno either.
Other than that, unlike other temple fairs that are usually crowded beyond belief, Chaoyang Park leaves most of the noise in the southern area and allows you to take an actually peaceful walk through the northern parts of the park. There you’ll find sculptures, a few bridges to cross, boats (for summer time), and, in general, peace and quiet. It was here I was also asked for my first photo with a Chinese lady. Why? I asked her. Because I’ve never seen a foreigner. I’ve always wondered what they do with these photos afterwards. Is there some sort of government profiling campaign or something? Anyway, photo op granted. At least she asked.
As usual, I tried some of the food, though I can’t say I was very impressed with the quality on offer. I had the skewered meat (also known as chua’r, 串儿) and also opted for the Brazilian churros. Yep, churros. I opted to skip out on the hawthorns at this particular festival only because I knew I’d have them later.
Depending on who you go with, you can spend any amount of time at one of these fairs. I usually like to walk the whole circuit, take pictures and try the food. These festivals are aimed at the family, which means it’ll have lots of activities for kids and traditional food for the family. No alcohol is available. I was on my own this time and so after two hours it was time to head home. Since most festivals run from 830 am to 430 pm, many of the performances start around 930 am, have a break just before lunch, and then resume from midday until about 330 pm or so.
DITAN PARK TEMPLE FAIR
If there’s one temple fair you need to visit should you be in Beijing for the new year, it’s the Ditan Park Temple Fair. This is the biggie, and the swarm, gaggle, plethora, crush, lines or whatever of people are proof of its popularity. Deciding to get away from my relatively quiet neighbourhood, I got on the subway and headed up to the YongHeGong Temple area which is just south of Ditan Park but across from the WuDaoYing Hutong. These three points of interest make up a significant tourist attraction in one tiny area of Beijing, hence the crowds of people.
Not to be daunted, it’s a good fair to go to during which you can actually see some performances from around China (well, the dances are, not sure about the performers) and try food from around the country as well. It has a good reputation and is often talked about by the Chinese people themselves.
I was too late for the 930 am performance of the imperial supplication to the Earth for a good harvest. I thought about going but it was just too early and a bit far away. What’s more, when I saw the crowd of people at the entrance to the park, I consoled myself thinking that I probably wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway. In any event, I did pass by the altar that is used in the ceremony.
Ditan Park is probably one of the more confusing parks to wander through. Maybe ‘confusing’ is the wrong word, since the park is good for a wander, but since there’s no ordained path around a lake or anything, you can easily get mixed up and end up at the wrong gate by accident. This wandering-style of park is helpful only in that you do get to see a lot of the park and get your steps in, but it also means you need to know where your directions are and which exit leads to the appropriate subway station or whatever you need.
While lolly gagging and checking my uploads, I was approached by at least one “student” who asked if he could introduce to me the traditions of the Spring Festival. I thought “sure, why not?” not knowing that his parents were right there and that his mother would eventually video record his prepared speech given to me. At the end of his speech (he had seven points to go through), I asked him how much money he had gotten in his hong bao, he didn’t understand. I asked in Chinese. He didn’t understand. I started to think that maybe he didn’t understand my Chinese. So I asked him if he understood what I said (in English), he didn’t understand. I asked him again in Chinese, and he didn’t understand. Now I knew he didn’t actually know any English. At which point his mother came to his rescue and said something, most of which I didn’t understand, but it was something about it was a school project and he wanted to practice his English skills. It was a good time to break off the conversation. My bad Chinese skills, his rehearsed English skills, this seems like too much like work! Happy New Year! Have a nice day!
And off they went.
Walking through the park once again, I did come across at least one altercation at the good-luck-coin-fountain, at which the Bao An guys were getting after one of the coin throwers for doing something wrong. Not sure what. In any event, she was told to leave and everybody went back to throwing their coins into the hole for good luck.
In terms of performances, the sun came out and the wind died down enough at around 1 pm as the performances began. A total of six or so, some drums from Henan, a young girls’ group performing an umbrella dance, a comedic elders’ group that went on for a substantial amount of time (20 minutes?), and then another drum number from the Henan group again. The first set of performances ended an hour later and I suspect it would be repeated once again until 330pm or so. I did manage to get some video (yes, I am that guy who holds his hand up and records performances for significant amounts of time). I ended up staying for the entire hour since I really had nowhere else to go.
For food I had a couple of Taiwanese-flavoured sausages (I don’t know why they’re called that) and a dish of baozi. Generally speaking, food is either 10 or 20 kuai per serving. I did mean to try the youcha (like a liquified rice cake) but the line ups where usually pretty long and so I opted to skip it.
Temple Fair traversed, it was off to the subway I went, through the crowds of people.
LONGTANHU PARK TEMPLE FAIR
Finally, on Saturday, I ventured out once again to the LongTanHu Temple Fair, which is relatively close to my place, but not really. It’s an hour walk, a 38-minute bus ride, or a 15-minute subway ride in between two 10-minute walks. Got that? Either way, it’s not far but it’s not all that close.
This temple fair does actually have a temple in it and a lake around which a walking path winds. It is this walking path to which you’re mostly confined, though there are some areas you can branch off. In essence, you are given a path to walk along and it behooves you to follow the crowd. Overall, this park makes for a much more communal walk.
The typical food stalls and trinkets were on display in addition to the colour scheme of the year (red with embroidered gold). Since there is a lake inside of the park, there was also a winter wonderland snow hill and skating area that people could enter. Also at this fair was a larger food area, a sequestered games and rides section, and then the temple itself, which overlooked the park and was closed off from visitors for the duration of the fair.
The one notable difference of this fair is the colourful spinners suspended along the walkway. In addition to the typical plastic red lanterns hung in the trees, this park had multi-coloured flowers that would spin when the wind blew.
The park also plays host to the Dragon stone tablets, which are a series of stones set up on the eastern side of the park on a small hill. On the opposite side of the lake there is an old airplane, though that story I’m not too sure about.
The food was better here, in my opinion, but maybe that was also because there were more places to buy from which meant less waiting and pushing. Among the food items tried were skewered meat (chua’r), strawberries and hawthorns on a stick covered in sugar, zha guan chang 炸灌肠 (like rice cakes with garlic and butter drizzled on top), and then yín’ěr gēng (银耳羹 ) with goji berries which is like a sweet drink.
It was also this fair that the creep-shots happened and I could see people talking about me to their friends. How so? Because Chinese people aren’t very good at being subtle. You see one person’s eyes widen, then some muttering to their friends, and then their friends look in the most obvious fashion. As for the creep shots, it seems to be the older crowd that does it, and at least one of them I managed to get a picture of before he disappeared into the crowd. Again, what do they do with these pictures? I mean, I put them on a blog, what do they do with them? Kinda weird.
One thing you are supposed to do at these fairs is walk through the tunnel of red lanterns, which, again, brings good luck. At this festival, too, you’re supposed to touch the character for good fortune, 福 (Fú) which, you may recall is also suspended on my window in my apartment. I didn’t want to wait for all of the other people to clear away from the poster so I contented myself with a selfie.
Anyway, by the time I’d gotten to the park (3pm), the shows were over so it was basically a walk around, eat, and then leave. I picked up one last stick of hawthorns before I left and that would end my temple fair visits for 2019.
Instead of taking the bus back and since the park was close enough to my place, I decided to walk back and get my steps in for the day.
And so ended my Spring Festival 2019 Year of the Pig Temple Fair visits and vacation!