Upon leaving Hong Kong,
we traveled by bus across southern China to the city of Zhanjiang. There, we had the opportunity to experience more of
Chinese New Year.
We went to the beach, where many local people were shooting off (significant) fireworks, right overhead; and releasing these fire-lighted, paper lanterns, into the night sky. It was so cool! They rose, like miniature hot-air balloons, with 20 streaming across the sky at any given moment.
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| Young couples wrote messages of lasting love on the soon-to-be-released lanterns. |
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| The huge lantern display at the fireworks site |
Fireworks were exploding in the night sky all around us......very exciting! They were actually echoing off the big hotel across the street.
Even apples in the grocery store were carved with New Year greetings.
Many of the holiday wishes have to do with MONEY and good fortune
for the new year. Notice the stacks of Mao Zedong 100 yuan notes that adorn this poster, which was displayed among incense and other items, in a place for worship and appeal.
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| Chinese people are typically very superstitious, decorating doors with the red posters. |
Taoist god shrines abound. Taoism was the old religion of China, with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity coming later.
This may be "the god of the sea", since it was located in a small building on the sandy beach.
We continued to see the
RABBIT of 2011
everywhere. This was at our hotel in the coastal city of Beihai, which looks out onto the Gulf of Tonkin (made famous during the Vietnam War years.)
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| (photo taken along the roadway) |
Big Problem:
Some of the islands in southern China are very TRASHY ! (This aspect reminded us of traveling in Africa.)
I kept thinking that, "if each and every person who lives on this island would grab a few trash bags and have a clean-up day, the islands would be so much nicer for everyone, including the inhabitants."
But, cleaning up the place is not a priority.
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