New Year in Beijing – what a start to our time living out here! Here we are, just three days into our Beijing adventure and we find ourselves on the 30th floor of Embassy House (our apartment block), at midnight, with Joe - the Tongan Defence Attache, wearing a blue shell suit and free hotel fluffy slippers - his 9 children and a whole crowd of Tongans and other residents watching the most amazing fireworks display ever seen.
So, it turns out that the Tongan embassy is on the 30th floor of our apartment block. There are only 100,000 people living in Tonga and it seems as if most of them are part of the embassy delegation. Since they are too small to have their own embassy building, they have been occupying a floor here at Embassy House (very appropriate) for the last five years. We met a group of them in the bar this evening and ended up being invited up to their apartment – sorry, embassy – to watch the crescendo of fireworks leading up to midnight. Tongan social activity in Beijing is organised by Asupa – a noisy, brash, larger than life person who befriended us in the bar and invited us to join the party. Good old Asupa – what a hostess – our glasses were never empty!
The firecrackers and fireworks started early afternoon. Men & women setting them off on pavements, on street corners and in the middle of the streets. We had to walk gingerly round them as we returned from dinner (Schezuan meal with a chili beef that was too hot to handle) to avoid being blown up. All around, car alarms wailed as they were set of by the explosions. Steadily, the intensity and pace of the fireworks picked up and by midnight the entire city was a massive fireworks display. The noise was unbelievable. No government organised official display for Beijing – this was thousands of people setting off fireworks all over town. Big rockets, firecrackers and everything in between. The air was soon thick with smoke from the million of fireworks being let off. The entire city, for as far as the eye could see was a mass of explosions and bright lights. Take a look at this amateur video footage from YouTube.
But back to Joe. He is married to the Tongan ambassador for China. She wasn’t feeling well and was asleep. Hard to believe that it was possible to sleep. Jo, like all Tongans was a big rugby fan – Tonga will be in the same group as England in the world cup. Amazing that they can produce an international team, and compete, from a population of 100,000 people.
It’s 2.30 am – the fireworks are still going off all over the city. Apparently this goes on for the whole of the spring festival period – two weeks. I hope this is a joke.
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