Float Festivities II

Once again, I realize that I have definitely not been on the ball lately in regards to frequent, or even semi-frequent updates. To sum it all up in an understatement, things have become quite hectic here, now that everyone's sprinting full-force into the home stretch. The semester is drawing to a close, and so is my time here as a Maryknoll teacher in northeastern China.

As nice as it would be to segway into a deep self-reflection right now, unfortunately I must confess that lately I haven't done much in the way of introspection. Free time is something that I currently lack. As usual, pharmaceutical English classes and my nighttime IELTS  class (International English Language Testing System) are gobbling up most of my attention and energy, and whatever scraps of those that I have left are usually fed to my ongoing job search and preparations for my upcoming transition back home

Not too surprisingly, I have a bit of a backlog of reports and photos, but at least better late than never. Anyways, last Monday after my classes wrapped up, I decided to give everything a bit of a rest and take yet another much needed walk (an occurance that's becoming as rare as my blog posts), and that rather spur-of-the-moment decision was more or less due to one factor above all else:

This picture may not reveal too much, but believe me when I say that last Monday's weather was like finding a diamond in a cow patty. For at least two weeks, the region has been facing both rain and thunderstorms on a nearly daily basis in a pretty set routine. First comes what I have casually dubbed "the apocalypse clouds."

They of course are then soon followed by a usually short-lived downpour that can get so fierce that you're tempted to clasify anything that happened before that ferocious burst of rain as antediluvian.

Usually, jagged bolts of lightning and thunderous roars also tag along for the stormy fun, and such has more or less been the norm as of late. As a result, it's made the daily teaching routine a tad interesting.

However, if the timing of the daily deluge is just right, the good cleaning that it can give the air can really lead to some utterly spectacular results.

If I could, I would swear on a mile-high stack of Bibles as I type these next words, for I am 100% that last Monday morning/early afternoon was literally the clearest day that I remember experiencing here. Even now, when I look back to several days ago, I instantly recall looking out the window between class periods and just being utterly taken aback by simply how blue everything was. I felt so genuinely awed, it was like I never laid eyes on that particular shade in the sky before.

Thus, as soon as I was free of classroom duties, I nabbed my camera and dashed over to the main stretch of the Songhua River, which has become even more crowded with various brightly colored and dazzling floats.

It would seem that the city is really going all out in order to try and make this a new annual tourist draw. Seeing as this is only the second year that they've done this, we will all still have to wait for a while to see if the Jilin River Festival or whatnot becomes a common mention in travelers' guides. In the meantime though, at least I'm enjoying the fresh new sights (and this gigantic beer bottle a bit too much in particular).

For those of you who forget, Snow Beer (雪花啤酒) is the beer brand here, and I mean that quite literally when I say it's the brand up in this stretch of the northeast. Either you drink this, China's internationally-known Qingdao brand, or else you're just not drinking.

That has definitely been actually quite a sizable difference from life back in New England. I can think of quite a few friends and family members back home who would probably be horrified at the thought of not being able to walk into any store and not be met by the sight of at least four craft brews stocking the shelves.

One float that stands out particular is the gaudily-colored hydroelectic dam you see here.

There's no doubt in my mind that this is a model of the nearby dam that supplies the bulk of electricity to the region, and is responsible not only for the very existence of Songhua Lake, but Jilin City's biggest claim to fame:

Jilin's hoar frost, one of the Four Natural Wonders of China, owes 99% of its existence to the dam that helps keep the waters around here unusually warm in the thick of wintertime.

While we're on the topic of energy and industry, here's the none-so-subtle contribution of Jilin Petrochemical, the area's major employer.

It even comes completely with its very own little refinery for a nice added touch.

Again, we see yet another shout-out to Jilin City's oft-forgotten past as the major shipbuilding center of the area several hundred years ago (and glory days as the regional capital, though frankly I prefer it's current status as a somewhat sleepy provincial-level city).

.....I'm sorry, but if you want to know what's going on here, I have no answers to offer you.

Nearly every float is its own private little floating party, with each one exploding with colorful and imaginative treats for anyone laying eyes on them. However, I think that in spite of that, many of them are still outshined by one in particular.

Here, we see a very literal 3D rendition of a well-known idiom here, 鯉躍龍門. In English, it translates roughly to "The carp jumps over the Dragon Gate." Thus, one one side, you see a veritable parade of fish all eagerly swimming to the bright red gate. 

Then, after successfully reaching their goal, their reward is new life as a proud Chinese dragon.

The phrase essentially is about achieving success or good fortune through perserverence and hard work, and is the main reason why the carp is such a common sight in Chinese artwork.

As this latest overly-large batch of photos hopefully conveys, I definitely enjoyed myself on that particular day. Give me nice weather, a camera and freshly-charged batteries, and I'm happier than a clam.

Once again, it was yet another much-needed respite from work, and I hope to have one like it rather soon. In the meantime, it's back to the same old routine for me; still grossly under-appreciating how life-transforming these past two years have been as I fixate the bulk of my attention on all the day-to-day obligations. Wheeeee!

(Up on the to-do list for this week: dealing with the fact at least 1/4 of my IELTS class interpreted six percent on a line graph as either six million or "a majority" on last week's practice writing.)

Comments

[Julie Riggle]

I liked your pictures so much that I had to go see the floats today. The ships looked like copper gleaming in the sunlight.

Julie Riggle

[Chris]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF BEER?

[ada]

Hello, you used to write excellent, but the last few posts have been kinda boring… I miss your great writings. Past few posts are just a little out of track! come on!