My Chinese New Year

Christmas is over, and we have arrived at the New Year.  I was going to write about my experience of Christmas here, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I was at the East Nanjing Subway station area on New Years, a few blocks away from the Bund, when the tragedy at the Shanghai New Years celebration happened.  I was waiting for a friend so we could walk there for the countdown.

I had come in from Songjiang District where I live.  There was no local celebration of New Year in Songjiang, as far as we knew, so many people I know got hotel rooms in downtown to go to the Bund.  I was warned that the subways might be shut down and it would be impossible to get into the city for security reasons.  I was surprised and asked why, if there was a danger of violence?  The Chinese people are not violent,  I was told it was because there were just too many people, and I really didn't understand what that meant.  But the subways were running as usual.  My friend and I knew we would need to get a taxi to go home and that it would be very expensive.

I bought a hat and went to the toilet as I waited for my friend.  The wind was biting, and many street vendors were selling hats and lighted head bands.  As midnight approached there was a rush of people running toward the Bund, but I wanted to wait for my friend, so I stayed put.  Her taxi was held up in the heavy traffic, so I missed the countdown on the Bund, by the grace of God.  There were small celebrations of confetti and lights at the open stores near where I was standing.

Shortly after there were many people walking away from the Bund looking for taxi's and ways home.  There was a what seemed to be a float with a band and music playing down the street from me.  But I don't speak Chinese well and my phone battery was dying so I stayed where my friend could find me.  I was going to spend the night at her apartment, and I knew if I didn't connect with her I wouldn't have a place to stay and it would be too far to take a taxi all the way home to Songjiang.  I had joked with my coworkers that I thought I was crazy to go into the city, and they would probably find me frozen and squished on the sidewalk in the morning.  The temperature was about 0° C.

I was taking shelter from the wind, with several other people, against a metal door of the closed subway exit.  My friend arrived quite a while after midnight and by then the streets were beginning to clear.  We walked to the Bund in relatively empty streets, passing by street vendors and police.  When we got to the Bund, the walkway along the river, it was also relatively empty and we walked along it until we decided to go get something to eat, and then go home.  We were sorry we had missed the countdown to midnight.  I wanted to wait in the downtown area until the streets had mostly cleared so we had a chance at getting a taxi.  Both of our phones were dead by then, so we stood in the street near a corner and flagged down taxis until we found one that would take us for a little less than the extravagant prices the others were charging.

We got to her apartment at about 4 am, and went to bed.  She began charging her phone and received a phone call early in the morning from friends telling her the news and asking if she were all right.  I had to wait until I got home in the afternoon to post on WeChat that I had survived the night in town and was safely home.

For the Chinese, throwing paper money in that crowd is like crying fire in a crowded theater.  It was a criminally negligent act.  Of course people would try to catch it, and in a body-to-body packed crowd it would be inevitable that people would get hurt.

The solution for this would be to set up local celebrations in each district of Shanghai and connect them with a large screen televising the Bund countdown.  Stopping the subways would also have prevented people from coming into the city center.  China is full of people, they are not violent, but as a whole they are motivated by mostly the same thing, prosperity and well being.  It seems to me my suggestion would allow for a peaceful celebration for everyone.