930am: The holiday has come to its end. My alarm just went off but I've been awake for about an hour. The firecrackers started at 830. It's the first Monday after the Chinese New Year holiday and the majority of people have gone back to work. To insure an auspicious year most businesses, large and small, will put out some offerings for someone or other in a separate existential plane, burn incense, and set off firecrackers. The bigger the company the bigger the ceremony.The smell of burning paper, incense, and gunpowder mix together and fill the streets with a not unpleasant fragrance and a subtle haze. Firecrackers go off constantly through the morning and into the early afternoon. I can hear the cracks from the breakfast shops behind my 12th floor apartment. At times, it sounds like someone shot a gun on the roof outside my window.
when I left my building at 1030 to go the the grocery store and a cup of coffee the office building next door was having a huge bai bai 拜拜 (worship/offering ritual). That's the picture you see above.
Teacher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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