Tonight will see the first full moon of the lunar New Year.

That means this day marks the end of the Spring Festival. It’s called yuan xiao jie, or Lantern Festival. The tradition is to eat small glutinous rice cakes called yuan xiao, which are filled with red bean past and apparently make quite a good breakfast. Unfortunately I seem to be the only person in the entire office who hasn’t eaten any today. Everybody seems to have had their fill of dumplings at home or on the way to work, but nobody thought to bring any in to share with this laowai. Hmpf. I began my Lantern Festival day with a two-hour Chinese lesson from which my head is still reeling. My Chinese pronunciation, apparently, is quite good, which makes for the dangerous trap that a lot of people, including my teacher, seem to fall in to: They think I can speak much more than I really can! While I suppose it’s nice for your teacher to challenge and believe in you, it can be awkward to have a taxi driver yacking away, and all you’re able to do is smile and nod.

On the positive side, today should also mark the final day of fireworks. However, because it’s the final day on which they are tolerated, those cracker enthusiasts are giving it their all today- when I left for work I felt like I was walking through a mine field, and that was at nine in the morning. Imagine what it’ll be like tonight! As my colleague said, “You can always tell it’s an important day in China just by the amount of fireworks.”

Bis dann,

Nadine