Evil Spirits don't Like Smoke

A New Year in China

In spite of my vow to never be here again for the number one holiday in China, last night we ushered in the year of the rabbit. The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, comes at the start of the lunar calendar and in fact it is suddenly warmer here in Beijing. A year ago nobody had warned me so when the explosions started outside my window; I ended up curled in bed, shaking from the heart stopping vibrations and blood-curdling noise.  I was terrified.  I had never experienced anything like it.  I was supposed to go out that night, but was too scared to walk in the streets which looked and sounded like a war zone.  Every family left in the city had invested in major fireworks and they were not timid to blow them up on successive corners.  It went on 24/7 for days.  After all, the Chinese were welcoming the year of the tiger which is aggressive, dynamic and forceful.  I was a physical and psychological wreck by the fifth day.

This is a new year.  Not only did I go out last night, but I was not paralyzed or put out by the enormous rockets ignited on the other side of the street as I walked.  A spark had even hit me and I simply moved on.  Had I changed?  What was different?  At about 11:30, I decide to walk home to make it back just before the midnight onslaught.  I watched myself happy amid the crashing and banging that was picking up all over the city.  My gaze went up in admiration to the cascading, colorful lights which streamed through the sky.  This year I even stopped to watch and appreciate the bright blasts.

How strange it was to be glad, making it home just before 12 to see the massive display.  I didn't even need the Winnie-the-Pooh eye cover and ear plugs I had purchased to protect myself from the mayhem.  I went to bed still watching, delighted by the mesmerizing sights even as debris hit my window.  When I got tired, I went to sleep despite the noise.  Somehow this year it was comforting.  Could the year of the rabbit really be that different from the year of the tiger?  Apparently.

My friend told me her uncle spent two thousand dollars on fireworks every year.  He would open the window to his apartment and hope the smoke would blow in.  The bad air was one of the things I hated most about Beijing, so of course I asked, "Why?" "Evil spirits don't like smoke", is what she said.  So today I did something else which surprised me, I opened the window in my apartment and could smell the smoke, a by-product of bottle-rockets.  I don't like smoke either, but I'll try anything to get rid of those pesky evil spirits.

I can't help thinking it is a new year here in China.  At first I think I just may have made it through another "blue period" of my life and may be emerging and that's why it feels new.  I think it is my perpetual, unnatural clinging to a shred of optimism that might be renewing itself.  But if it is not that, what else can it be that makes this year different?  I don't think it is my yearning for something good to happen that brings this about.  I could say it is my courage to start my life over again and again, but there is something else here.  That isn't even anything new for me.  This one isn't about me, I suspect. 

I don't like loud noises, smoke or chaos.  But that is just the beauty of the whole thing.  It doesn't matter what I think.  I see my attachment to my limited assessments.  I need these disruptions to keep me from a self-manipulated definition of anything.  It's not exactly that I need the smoke in my house to scare away the spirits; I need to be able to open the window to ideas which are foreign and illogical to me.  I need the Chinese who see the world differently than I do.  I need the external input, redirection, guidance.  I can't figure my life out on my own.  I admit my limitations.  However strong I may have proven myself to be, I cannot pretend to have enough of anything to figure this life out on my own.  I need those loud noises to wake me up.  We can make all the internal adjustments we can think of, but without taking in some of the external contributions, we have very little.

It's not a new year just because I walked through the fire lit streets of Beijing instead of huddled in my bed.  It's not a new year because I feel renewed confidence in myself and my purpose in the warmth of the Spring festival.  It's not because I have a new outlook on life as I learn to speak Chinese to the people I meet.  I am old enough to have done all these things before in other countries and in other languages.  Yes, these are good and help a person to reinvent oneself, but it's not what I am talking about.  What if there really is a difference between the tiger and the rabbit?  What if I am really more dependent on external factors than I thought?  What if I need the moon to move around the earth just enough times to shed light on my path?  Is that really so crazy?

The Chinese calendar moves in cycles of 60 years.  Whether or not one can understand the two interactive systems of the five heavenly elements (in order, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water) in their yin and yang forms and the twelve Zodiac animal signs, it is clear that the calculations are a way to measure time.  This ancient system has been in place since the Shang dynasty (1600 BCE -1100 BCE) long before the Gregorian one.  Yet both systems recognize man's external relationship with time and perhaps the marking of times and the changing of times.  That's what I really needed to remember.  Times change and no matter how I handled myself or what I thought or did, different time periods would have perhaps more bearing on my life than my individual will.  I found the thought I was looking for when I considered the Cultural Revolution in contrast to succeeding years.  During the Cultural Revolution intellectuals were chained, tortured and publicly humiliated.  Just years after Mao's death, going to college and being smart made a man a hero in his town.  The man who lived through both times was not different; it was the times which were.

This year is different, for better or worse, for its ebbs and flows, regardless of what I think.  I can't help liking that.  My efforts are only a piece of the complex puzzle of existence.  Timing plays a big part, a huge part in all of this no matter which calendar you use.  It's the only way to explain certain things.  Evil spirits and I don't like smoke.  I hate to admit that we have anything in common. But that doesn't even matter.  What really matters is who is going to be left after the smoke clears?  Like the rabbit, I'll be here reflective, gentle and ready for my next jump.