A Broad Reference

It's officially New Year's Eve, and folks here started celebrating at midnite (or rather- this morning) with firecrackers that went on for minutes at a time. Angelica, Dee and Jessie took me to the New Year Night market yesterday, it only happens around this time. It was so packed with crowds of people, you had to just keep walking at the same pace else you bumped into people in front or behind. Everyone was selling some kind of amazing snack, specialty food item or fancy purses/toys for presents. There's a hum of energy and excitement mixed with anticipation in the air, so everyone seems oblivious to the rain. It was so packed that Ange and I got separated from Dee and Jessie pretty much immediately- it was just too hard to stay together. The noise levels are quite high. People are trying to attract customers by having a good energy- and that entails using a microphone and loudspeakers. There was even one guy rapping in Chinese about how we should buy from his stand- pretty funny and kind of inspired performance art at the same time. The other very effective strategy was to block the stream of pedestrians and redirect everyone physically to your stall.

Unfortunately, my camera chose to die during this excursion (I think coz of the pouring rain), so no shots of the dried candied squid (魷魚 yóu yú) stalls or the mounds and bags of beans/seeds flavored with lavender or green tea (my personal favorite- wasabi coated black beans 豆豉 dòu chǐ) or the spicy whelks (辣螺 là luó) piled in bowls and served with a twist of lime. Freeze dried vegetable/fruit chips (薯片 shǔ piàn) were popular, as were deep fried and spicy flavored shrimp and taro chips. Candy stalls, dried fruit & fish/shrimp stands were surrounded by people trying to pick up last minute supplies before all the stores shut down for the week. No pics of the wicked sharp steel knives made from Chinese artillery shells.

Everyone including my teacher has warned me "stock up on food, the stores will all be closed for family time". On the way home from class yesterday, I found a Cantonese roast meat place and bought a massive roast duck, which should last us through the week. As predicted, the city is pretty deserted today. Traffic is light and the rolling shutter doors that line the sidewalks are locked tight.

We hung out at the apartment today, just vegging. I helped Angelica walk the dogs, it's a great way to explore the neighborhood. It's pouring rain still, so not quite as fun as when it's dry- I'm glad I brought my rain shell.

Angelica had to finish her feature article which the computer ate the night prior. Mostly quiet. Around 7pm we cooked dinner with Dee as sous chef.
We had fresh asparagus, roast duck, rice, ginger cooked squash and a huge salad. Drinks were guava juice spiked with pear-infused vodka. Not super traditional food but tasty. It was fun to hang out and cook together.

Ange wants to play Chinese New Year music, get a lucky pineapple and put up lucky posters. I think we've left it too late. We'll be playing mahjong and eating snacks with some friends later this week. So I think we're partly covered in the tradition corner.