Chinese New Yawn

And the first prize for godawful title of the year goes to... Chinese New Year, aka Spring Festival, is supremely boring here in Mother China. Even Shanghai, the Pearl of the Orient, is mindfuckingly dull at this time of year. It's so bad that only now can I wake from my boredom-induced stupor and really see how banal the whole enterprise really is. Sure, in New Zealand, and I guess most other non-Chinese countries, it's a great festival -- lion dances, dragon dances, lots of great food, more dances, um, even more dances. Lanterns too. Here though, it's so bloody boring. A whole week off, punctuated by random attacks of fireworks. The first day it's pretty cool. Sure, the shops are closed, but you have plenty of food at home and it's nice to see the pretty flashes of colour. By day 5 though, you're down to eating toenail clippings and venturing out into the chilly Shanghai air in nought but a loincloth and primitive bow, shooting at the strays and gorging greedily on their pathetic excuse for entrails. Ahem. Where was I? Oh, and by that time you're getting sick of living in an audio-visual simulation of Iraq, minus corpses. Everywhere you go it's flash bang snap crackle pop fuck-off-and-die. Still, it's over now and I can snatch back my sculpted yet macho physique from the slavering jaws of utter starvation. No more toenails for me, nosiree, only the finest 5rmb gourmet dishes from now on. And I can now walk down the street without jumping out of my skin and suffering random incidences of firework-induced blindness and deafness. Man, the Pinball Wizard kid ain't got nothin' on me.