Lantern Festival

We've reached the end of the 15 days of lunar New Year festival, which culminates in Lantern festival. 

Here's a quick Chinese equation:
Lantern Festival = Fireworks > 4th of July displays

Which of course has made us feel like we're living in Gaza rather than China!! There is no end to the crazy fireworks ... as in the huge kind, the likes of which are displayed at, say the White Sox games, under the supervision of professionals. These are launched at random between concrete apartment buildings, and lit with cigarette lighters. There are also the seemingly more dangerous ones that stay on the ground and sound like rapid sniper fire. While the larger, more brilliant colored ones certainly are beautiful, it seems the ground dwelling pyrotechnics are used simply for their demonstrative loud noise.

The air is hanging with smoke this morning, and there are bits of red paper and larger chunks of debris (that we could hear landing on the tile roof of our six-story apartment building last night following brilliant displays of red, green and white fireworks.)

I've got my I/T guy working on downloading some video clips. The soundtrack of the event is definitely what helps give you a better idea of what we're talking about.

So.... check back soon!