Happy belated Dragon Boat Festival!
Delicious zongzi from friends
The Dragon Boat Festival takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Lunar Year. This year, it fell on June 16th. I have been told the festival commemorates the death of Qu Wuan, a poet from Warring States Period (Around 300 B.C). Qu Wuan was accused of some no-good stuff and eventually committed suicide by jumping in a river. Many admirers were worried fish would eat Qu Wuan, so they made zongzi to feed the fish. (Chinese friends are welcome to correct me.) The holiday was re-instated in the last decade. Chinese people celebrate by eating zongzi and racing dragon boats. Zongzi typically are filled with meat or beans. I had a particularly delicious one filled with egg and meat.
Days off for holidays works a bit differently in China. If we have a midweek holiday in America, we generally have a day or two off and the days are added to end of the school year. Here, they pull some crazy shenanigans and rearrange the work week. We worked from Monday to Sunday and had our holiday + weekend on the following Monday to Wednesday. I can just imagine trying to get American students to go to school seven days in a row.
I spent most of the holiday relaxing as best I could. I was exhausted from being sick and working. The Expo had something like 1.4 million visitors during the holiday.
I recently read an article about noise thresholds for people and the idea of loud in different cultures. (Conveniently, I read this as a jackhammer or some power tool was blasting in the apartment next to mine at 7:00 PM.) Generally, I have found Shanghai to be a very loud city. I often feel like people are yelling at me when they are actually speaking in normal voices. Once in a while, I can't figure out if they are angry or just loud. I know plenty of loud Americans but being unable to understand the majority of what is being said to me makes it feel a little more like yelling. Maybe. I'm not too sure.
Most of the time, Shanghai doesn't seem so exotic to me because I see it everyday. Despite being unable to understand nearly everything around me, I still forget I'm in China. A couple weeks ago when a friend was visiting, I took a picture of a man attaching a bicycle to a giant load of chairs. Though I saw more of this in other cities, Shanghai still has its fair share of giant bike loads.
I spent most of the holiday relaxing as best I could. I was exhausted from being sick and working. The Expo had something like 1.4 million visitors during the holiday.
I recently read an article about noise thresholds for people and the idea of loud in different cultures. (Conveniently, I read this as a jackhammer or some power tool was blasting in the apartment next to mine at 7:00 PM.) Generally, I have found Shanghai to be a very loud city. I often feel like people are yelling at me when they are actually speaking in normal voices. Once in a while, I can't figure out if they are angry or just loud. I know plenty of loud Americans but being unable to understand the majority of what is being said to me makes it feel a little more like yelling. Maybe. I'm not too sure.
Most of the time, Shanghai doesn't seem so exotic to me because I see it everyday. Despite being unable to understand nearly everything around me, I still forget I'm in China. A couple weeks ago when a friend was visiting, I took a picture of a man attaching a bicycle to a giant load of chairs. Though I saw more of this in other cities, Shanghai still has its fair share of giant bike loads.
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