Another Weekend

A Real Waterfall. Not.
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

Well, its Monday where I am, which means the weekend proper is over, which means I can rest again. Working at a private school means that weekends are our busiest times, so I now look forward to Monday.

This past Saturday was the Dragon Boat Festival, which I'm pretty sure they celebrate one month earlier in the south of China. Anyways, its a celebration in honor of a poet/govenor who flung himself into a river because, even though he was very intelligent and benevolent, the emperor and his fellow govenors refused to heed his sage advice. So he died a martyr, and now the Chinese race dragon boats (kinda like a crew skull) and wash their faces with the morning dew by the riverside in memoriam.

It is not very interesting, and as the action takes place at dawn, which is around 330 AM, I did not join in the festivities. I slept. I have no regrets. The only Westerners I know who did go to the riverside said it was crowded and they didnt really understand why so many people were there, as it seemed like there wasn't really anything to do.

Right now the resteraunt outside my window is having a celebration of its own, complete with some dude murdering currently popular Chinese songs over a blaring sound system, a big rainbow arch, and canons. The canons are the funny part, as everytime I've seen these puppies in action something/someone has caught fire and when the blast echo down the street the noise tends to set off every car alarm around. General mass confusion and silliness, a specialty here in China. Really, you can not see anything like it back in the West.

Hooray for the West.