...."Foreigners guide on how to survive Chinese New Year
The concept of Chinese New Year in Australia has always been a novelty for me. All I really knew about the day was that in school some Asians would take a day off. Down in Footscray there’d be some fireworks and dragon displays and for some of my friends got little red envelopes stuffed with money.
Actually living the new year here in Taiwan and celebrating it however was an entirely different and more engaging experience in itself.
1. Fireworks
Coming from Australia where fireworks are mostly illegal hearing fireworks go off regularly (and I do mean regularly) is somewhat of a strange experience. The closest sound I associate to the firework bang is that of a gunshot.
Consequently this last week I’ve been ducking my head more then a few times (alright maybe hundreds) every time I hear them go off.
With the exception of the whistling fireworks which give you some warning the firework of choice here seems to be ones that let off a massive earth rumbling boom. This variety is followed closely in popularity by the ‘rata-tata-tata’ type which sounds like machine gun fire going off for about 20-30 seconds.
The worst part of it is that Chinese New Year goes for a week and you literally have fireworks going off at all hours every day of the week.
Right now it’s raining pretty solidly and I can still hear some die hards letting off their fireworks every so often.
By about day 3 (Monday or Tuesday) I was completely over fireworks and fighting off the rage that ensued whenever I heard them go off.
Be warned if you’re in one of the Asian countries where Chinese New Year is celebrated properly you might want to invest in a set of ear plugs for the first few nights.
2. Shopping availability
I can’t speak for other Asian countries but here in Taiwan half the country decides to shut down for the week of Chinese New Year. I live on a pretty busy street and there’s only three days left of the official week long holiday left, yet there’s just two food places open.
My Chinese New Year travels have taken me to some of the more remote mountainous parts of Taiwan as well as into the major cities like Taipei. Taipei was livable with from what I could see things mostly open.
Still, if you’re not familiar with the city (as I wasn’t) then expect to spend a bit of time navigating around. I was on a pretty tight schedule this week so apart from going to places meeting people I’d already planned I didn’t really have any time to get anything else done.
Internet access has been majorly problematic for me this last week. Internet cafe access in the smaller towns and regional areas has been pretty non existent. If you don’t speak Chinese outside of the main cities then forget about it.
A phrasebook will help somewhat but that only solves the issue of asking for directions in Chinese. Receiving directions to the nearest internet cafe in Chinese isn’t much help if you can’t decipher what you’re being told.
Major stores and supermarkets were all open as far as I could tell and foodwise you always had McDonalds, KFC et al. staying open.
Experiencing Chinese New Year in a city is relatively easy compared to the more authentic atmosphere of the more regional remote areas of Taiwan.
During my brief stay in Taipei the area I was in had a nice homely feeling (most likely due to the reduced numbers of people staying there) but to be honest there wasn’t any real sign of it being Chinese New Year. One thing Taipei had going for it though was that fireworks are only permitted in certain areas.
Needless to say Taipei provided some of the best nights sleep I’ve had in the past week.
In the countryside you’ve got randoms letting off fireworks and much more of a ‘where did everybody go and why is everything closed?!’ feeling. It really does feel like a ghost town at times.
3. The Weather
Before the new year started I asked someone what the average weather was during Chinese New Year. I was told it rained.
Having just come out of a week of 25+ degree sunny weather I refused to believe it. Sure enough though the rain rolled in sometime on the weekend and has kept up since.
Living in Melbourne meant we never had to put up with the rain for more then half an hour at best. Living in Taiwan however has meant the necessity of carrying an umbrella around everywhere and dealing with a constant steady stream of water falling from the sky.
It’s not torrential rain but it’s heavy enough that you don’t want to be walking around outside without an umbrella. Currently it’s been raining non-stop for the past three days.
I’m completely over it.
4. Sightseeing
Rain aside there’s all your usual stuff to do here in Taiwan during the New Year along with the added bonus of a few really good temple markets. Pretty much wherever there’s a temple in a city or town there’ll be a mass of stalls set up serving your standard fare of traditional night market food.
It can get a bit repetitive at times but it beats sitting at home bored.
Touristy attractions are guaranteed to be inundated with crowds so be prepared for long waits and masses of people everywhere you go. In this sense it was nice to visit Taipei as it seems most people leave the cities to go back to their parents places in the country for new year.
5. Public Transport
The train system seems to be touch and go over the week. In the first few days of Chinese New Year the MRA system was absolutely packed. Unless you prebooked your tickets expect to be standing, regardless of how much luggage you might have.
This gets really annoying when you’re travelling between towns and cities and have travel times of over an hour.
Towards the middle of the week getting a reserved seat was less trouble but I imagine the city bound trains are going to be jam packed again come this weekend (the final few days of the holiday period of the new year), as everybody heads back to the cities.
The MRT in Taipei on the other hand was very much quieter then usual and a pleasure to travel on. If you’re staying in Taipei for the new year getting around is definitely not a problem.
Taxi’s run as normal although expect a bit of price gouging in country towns where the drivers don’t use a meter and make up the fares.
One thing you don’t want to experience the Chinese New Year without is a plan on how to spend your time. If you’re solely staying in a city it might be ok as there’s always stuff to do but outside you really need to work out what you’re doing each day.
Taiwanese people seem to take their holidays pretty seriously so don’t count too much on sporadic spur of the moment trips to get you through the week. More often then not you’ll find places randomly closed or worse at such a capacity it’s not even worth the effort (for example I waited 12 minutes for one hotdog at one place it was so busy…).
The most important thing however it just to enjoy the time. There’s so much to do and so much food to eat it’s amazing. My waistline has definitely taken a pounding this last week but come Sunday when I’m preparing my lesson plans for Monday and getting ready to slip back into work mode, I can sit there, pat my belly and agree that it was all definitely worth it.
February 21st, 2010 at 1:27 am Yi(Quote)
we want more pics!
February 21st, 2010 at 1:43 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Relax they will come in time. I still haven’t worked out how to take girl pics without coming off creepy but everywhere else I go the phone cam is always with me.
I thought about doing an audio recording to show just how bad the fireworks were but due to the randomness of people letting them off thought it was too hard to synch it up.