新年快乐

I wasn't going to post on New Year's but there seems to be much curiosity among you as to whether and how the new year marked by the Western calendar is celebrated in China and so I will do my best to explain. In short, the traditional lunar calendar long used by the Chinese, has for practical purposes been eclipsed (ouch!) by the Judeo-Christian one most of us know and love. The Chinese New Year, celebrated in mid-winter (February 7th this year), is known here as the Spring Festival, and while it is a far more important holiday, both culturally and in terms of vacation time, it isn't the peak time for calendar sales.

January 1st is a National Holiday here, but it doesn't seem to have any of the weight or symbolism it does back in the states. There is no talk of resolutions or new beginnings and few fireworks or countdowns. The one thing that remains the same is that many people who normally wouldn't venture an intentionally humorous remark are all over the "see you next year" or "the chapter we studied last year" jokes.

As far as how it is celebrated, all I got from talking about it with my teachers and Chinese friends is that the evening is an opportunity to stay home and watch special programs on TV and the following day there are lots of sales at all the big department stores. Since I spent the evening out, I can tell you that the streets were generally as quiet as usual, aside from the foreigners who were determined to preserve their cultural heritage by getting batshit drunk and hitting on strangers (or fighting about Tibet, as Jessica discovered).

I spent the evening at a rock show, something I have been doing much more of recently. Jessica and I really wanted to see a couple of bands playing at the MAO livehouse and managed to drag our upstanding and scholarly friend Dan along with us.

The purpose of this picture was actually to capture the label of the beer I was drinking, a Chinese brand called SUPER COOL. Unfortunately, it was lost in the glare of my snarl. I took some pictures of the bands. None of them are particularly good, but they'll give you an idea.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were in town a few months ago and you can see Karen O's enormous influence on half of the female fronted bands in the city. The lead singer of this band, Queen Sea Big Shark overdoes it a bit, but they are still fun to watch.

This is Candy Monster. Their sound illustrates the second largest current influence on Beijing bands, which is, for some reason, the Strokes.

This is Hedgehog, who we had most wanted to see. They did not disappoint. The band is a tight little threesome with the most adorable drummer ever, hands down. She can't be more than 4'8", looks to be about 12, and plays like a monster. Unlike all the other punk rock kids in skinny jeans and stripes she wore a little lace-trimmed cardigan and mainlined Coca-cola. She looked like she was having so much fun that it made me believe in music all over again.

Like many popular Beijing bands, Hedgehog sings in English, although their lyrics are often mostly unintelligible. One of my favorite choruses, from the title track of their new album, has a simple message, delivered loudly: "we make noise!, noise hit world!"

We entered 2008 while Hedgehog was playing, but it was the first time I can remember that there wasn't a countdown of some kind. I missed it. I wondered if it would feel like the new year in the morning, once I knew that all my friends had celebrated, but it didn't really. I miss all the old rituals, small as they were. This holiday season has left me feeling rather disoriented, but with sights like these, can you blame me?