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Or to use the patois, "xin nian kuai le!" Next week is connotes the beginning of the Year of the Monkey (more like Cybernetically-Enhanced War Monkey) over here in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macao. It's a fairly sedate time, with everyone scattering to the four winds to go home and be with family. There are no lion dances, no dragon dances, and not many temple parades. Then, on the day after New Year's day, all hell breaks loose as the night and day markets re-open and everything goes on sale. The crowds are packed in so tightly it is a claustrophobes nightmare. Firecrackers -- long, ugly, chains of 100% undiluted gun powder -- explode non-stop for the next three days or so. Thoughtful and safety-concious shopkeepers will gladly toss out a lit chain right into the crowded sidewalk. If you stand too close, you will undoubtedly loose some of your hearing or even a finger or toe. God help you if drive down the gangster-owned streets at night on a motorcycle; not because the tattoed triad thugs are malicious, but rather because they tend to purchase big illegal boxes of professional-quality fireworks and shoot them down the street, motorized traffic be damned. Finally, there is the food. The sheer variety of new year dishes, specialty foods, imported Japanese candy, and unending rivers of booze make it a feast unparalleled by any other in China. During the Year of the Dog you could buy special "black dog" meat to feast upon, as that was considered a delicacy as well as auspicious. This year, I would not be surprised to find monkey meat on the menu (though no monkey brains, that's purely an unsubstantiated urban legend). Don't feel like monkey? Then head down to the streets where the Japanese tourists and businessmen hang out and find a sea turtle soup stall or the snake market to eat snake bladders mixed with blood and 7-up. Otherwise you have your standard complement of braised pork buns, shrimp and pineapple fried rice, "knife-cut" noodles, rice noodles, wheat noodles, hot pot, pig intestines, stir-fried snails, fish eyes, frog soup, deep fried quail, sea urchin, grilled squid, flayed squid, stir-fried squid, and deep fried octopus balls. Chris Jones
http://www.bombshellstudios.com
Edited 1/16/2004 12:54:42 AM ET by ZHONGLIJIE
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