Bringing in the New Year with a Banger

Back in February I was knocking about southern China with my friends Henry and Dan. We had gone to three cities and the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was our last full day in the south, before we flew home out of the city of Kunming.


This last bash coincided with Chinese new years, so we'd decided to go to a few different places in the city during the day. We hit up an English style pub, a park, and a huge youth hostel/pub situated in the middle of the city. Lots of neat cultural things go on during new years eve, and we wanted to try and experience some of them.

The park was a complete blowout, but we met a traveling Englishman there and he joined our group for part of the night.

Next we went to this pub. The pub was small but well furnished in blues and browns. Comfortable seating was to be had inside and out. We staked out a table on the street and drank a few beers with our new friend and some Germans. Down near the door was a sign that read in both English and Chinese: Free dumplings between 6:00 and 9:00.

We watched the sun go down.

"What do you think they're doing there?" Henry said, pointing into the pub. It was getting near six o'clock and we were keeping our eyes peeled for the free dumplings.

"I think those are the free dumplings," said Dan.

Sure enough, seated around an inside table, a group of expats were watching the Chinese pub owner as he instructed them in proper dumpling stuffing and sealing technique. Not only were the dumplings free, but we got to make them. We finished our beers by the time the first round of dumplings came. After we put them away, we decided to go in and lend a hand.

The art of dumpling making is very simple. There are two primary materials: a circular piece of thin dough, and some sort of stuffing, in this case a pork mix and a vegetarian mix. You take just the right pinch of mix -- too little and there's nothing to eat, too much and the dumpling bursts while its cooking -- and pack it into the dough. Wet the edge of the dough with some water and press it together into a crescent shape. Presto. You've made a dumpling.

There are, of course, levels to any art. A group of Chinese people joined us and showed us how to make stylish dumplings, with different patterns along the edges of the dumplings. I invented my own technique and showed it off to the watching Chinese. They shook their heads. Nobody in this country appreciates innovation.

We made dumplings for a while and ate them, and chatted with Chinese and expats. Eventually it was time to move on. The pub we were in was at the edge of the city, and we wanted to be near the center for what was coming next. The fireworks. We went out into the street and started wandering around, looking for a taxi. When we found one we gave the driver the Chinese address for our destination: The Hump youth hostel.

The Hump is situated at the top of a five story building near the center of Kunming. Not only did the hostel serve food and drink, but it had an awesome balcony where we could sit out under the stars and wait for midnight to come around. English, Americans, Australians, and Germans mingled on the roof, waiting for the light show.

I can understand why fireworks are illegal in China now. When midnight rolled around, you'd have thought you were in the middle of a war zone. Any body who can afford them buys up fireworks and shoots them off right in the middle of the city, in and amongst the buildings. We're talking about big fireworks here, the giant multicolored explosions in the sky. Air bursts of green, silver, and gold materialized around the sides of sky scrappers. In a nearby apartment building two groups of people were having a roman candle war. Instead of shooting the roman candles up in the air, two adjacent apartments were spraying them back and forth at each other. Down below people lit off smaller fireworks, especially, what Henry called bangers.

The first time Henry mentioned the word banger, Dan and I gave him looks. Bangers are a Britishism. They're firecrackers for you Americans who are reading.

While the fireworks in the sky were interesting, and pretty, the evolving banger war down below was more so. A group of police officers were camped out at the entrance tunnel to an underground karaoke bar, and they had loads of bangers. Any time people walked through the entrance, the cops would start throwing bangers at them. At some point the stopped throwing them at passers by and started lobbing them at each other.

"Awww, man." This was Henry. "I wonder if they'd give us some bangers."

By this point, Dan was fairly drunk, so he was up for anything. I had no excuse for the ensuing adventure. I said : "We could find out."

Going downstairs and out onto the street, we crept close to where the cops were still pitching firecrackers at each other and at passers by. We watched them for a while before we approached. One of the police officers spotted us right off, and tossed a banger our way. Henry and I scattered, while Dan took a few seconds to process that he was about to explode.

We wandered around amongst the cops dodging bangers they threw at us, both sides laughing at the mayhem. The cops also would toss a banger at any girl who walked through, getting a good shriek and dash out of them. Henry eventually approached one of the cops and asked him for some bangers. I can't imagine why we thought they would arm their easy targets. They turned us down and we wandered off into the night, our ears still ringing.

"We've got to be able to buy some around here," Henry said. "We can't just let them toss off at us like that. Western honor is at stake." So resolved, we started looking around.

Leave it to the Muslims to arm the Lao Wai. If you need something in this country, go find a Muslim street vendor. They're the most friendly, and the most useful. We found a group only two hundred feet away and bought six packs of bangers off them along with a couple of lighters. So armed we turned back towards the police.

"We'll just toss one near them first and see what they do," Henry said. "If that goes well...." He didn't need to finish.

We tossed one down near the entrance of the tunnel, ready to run if the need arose. It didn't even explode before the cops returned fire.

So the banger war had begun. The cops retreated into the entrance of the tunnel and pitched out bangers any time they spotted us. We threw them in. Henry and I served as a distraction while slightly drunken Dan snuck up towards the entrance of the tunnel and hid just outside its lip. He lit a banger and tossed it inside without looking.

Just past the entrance of the tunnel there was a podium and a couch. The podium had a large bundle of balloons tied to it. Dan's first banger missed the balloons and landed on the couch. After it exploded, a few of the cops walked up to it, probably worried that it might have been damaged. The soon went back to throwing bangers at us.

Dan lit another one and tossed it in blind. By this point I was standing next to him so I didn't see what happened around the corner.

All I saw was a massive explosion. Fire came belching out of the mouth of the tunnel.

"Oh crap," I said. Dan was laughing hysterically. I got ready to grab him. "Dan, we might need to get out of here"

I glanced around the corner. In the middle of the tunnel stood one singed police officer, some of his hair still smoking. The look on his face was one that nearly set me on the floor laughing, had I not been half worried about going to red Chinese prison. Fortunately, his buddies also thought whatever had happened was hilarious, and they were walking up to him, brushing him off and making sure he was okay.

I pulled Dan along until we got back near Henry.

"What the heck happened?" I asked.

"I think Dan hit one of those balloons," Henry said. Dan was still laughing. Little did we know that the Chinese still fill their balloons with hydrogen. We waved a sheepish goodbye to the police officers and were off into the darkness before the smoke cleared.

There were, of course, other adventures that we had during those two weeks. I'll tell you about them sometime. Meanwhile, life goes on. I've read yet another book: George Martin's A Feast For Crows. I haven't decided what I'll read next, probably Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea. I've finally settled in as far as work goes, and I've carved out just enough spare time to do a little writing and a good deal of reading, so I'm content.

My parents are showing up sometime in the next couple of weeks, though I'm not sure when. Should be a good time while they're here.

I'll catch you later.

Derek

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