Year of the Rooster!

Chinese New Year in Bangkok's Chinatown is not really comparable with our little local European versions. For one, not only are there far more Chinese residents in this city, the amount of Chinese descendants amongst the Thai population is quite large, thus ensuring a big show-up during the famous festival in Chinatown. To my amazement no firecrackers, altough the many red scraps of cardboard and paper with charred edges suggested that there had been quite a lot of firecrackers prior to my visit to the area. I was informed by some friendly people dressed in red (red everywhere during these days of course) that the built up to the actual New Year celebration had been going on for quite a few days already and consisted of well, firecrackers being thrown around and celebrating, slaughtering chickens for the gods and the common burning of fake money, also for the gods, because those guys sure like to party. So what was so special about today? I was soon to find out.

Lots and lots of people pressed together, trying to catch a glimpse of the ISUZU sponsored Dragon tearing trough a big paper screen and darting around a girl with a sword that had acrobatically and with typical Chinese contempt of mortal fears climbed to the top of a big bamboo pole. (As can be seen in the latest Zhang Yimou flick "House of the Flying Daggers") Meanwhile I was getting pushed and shoved by what felt like a million little Asians trying to decide where to go for a better view. And altough it is supposed to be one of the coolest months of the year, the absence of wind or breeze and the body heat generated from countless people packed tightly together (no I won't give any of that sardine-crap, that would be to easy now wouldn't it, just think of those images of Japanese commuters being pressed, compressed and beyond into the carriages of the tokyo subway.) As a result I was soon covered in the sweatstains of hundreds of people I have never seen before and will never see again. Luckily the many different smells coming from unidentified foodstalls had blocked my olfatory senses, thus saving me from this new sensation. I decided to split and let the Chinese New-Year for what it was. Easier said than done, I discovered I was roughly in the centre of the crowd and to get to any one of the side-alleys of the square I had to squeeze my way trough uncountable amounts of sweaty old grannies dangerously stretching their necks to see what was going on somewhere at the other side. It took me 37 minutes to cross a distance that on any other day would take me about 25 seconds and by now my shirt was not only soaking from the effort it took me but also from the efforts of aforementioned countless grannies blocking my path. Next year I think I'll try the local version in the Van Wesebekestraat...