新年快乐 !!
It’s 6 pm. I walk out of my home and onto my busy street. Well, my usually busy street. But it was empty. NO people, no cars, no bicycles. Eerily quiet. Then I hear it- sounds of… explosions?? Then louder- like gun shots. I turn the corner and boom pow lights flashes bang boom kapow! Smoke rising up from the ashes. Piles of burning debris line the sidewalks. Is there a war I missed? What’s going on? Oh wait- it’s just Chinese New Year!! Last year, I was in Thailand for Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival as it translates from Mandarin. I never experienced a city of 23 million people shutting down completely. It is quite interesting. I mean, I had to eat KFC for dinner because nothing else was open! Nothing! (I’ve never ever had KFC for dinner before- this is how extreme this is). So Spring Festival is super important in all of Asia, really. It’s the start of the new year, according to the lunar calendar. And this is the year of the roo...