Year of the Rooster!
Shanghai’s year of the rooster was just ushered in with incredible firework chaos! Basically, everybody here gets their hands on the biggest fireworks possible, and sets them off wherever there is an open patch of ground. I watched all of this from the 18th floor of an apartment building, and saw fireworks, shot by ordinary people, going up over the top of a 25-story building. At times it was deafening, and we were unable to talk, although my friends and I were inside a building, with all the windows shut. People seem to have shot off firecrackers in the stairwell of my building too, because I found all the detritus lying around everyplace when I came home.