-^-for posterity-^-

the second version of the chinese new year.

jack and i went to the local chinese highschool to participate in the festivities. during the lunar new year, the first three days each have specific functions. the first day of the new year you are supposed to spend with your family. the second day you are to spend with your in-laws. the third day is reserved for teachers. we heard this and thought, “wow, our room will be a joyous mess of phone calls and visits. how much fun is this going to be!” we ended up sitting around all day reading. no one called.

the chinese high school is a u shaped building. jack and i were adorned in our lunar new year’s best and we sat in one of the front benches reserved for guests of honor. we listened to speeches in vietnamese, chinese and cambodian. we understood a bit of the vietnamese but the chinese and cambodian was only an odd mixture of hand gestures and sounds. the treasurer of the chinese cultural preservation society in long xuyen stood up. we had no idea what lie ahead. we sat through a solid hour of number reading and an entire analysis of last year’s spending. i could feel my eyelids weighing my face down and my stomach was angry with me.

he ended after banging his glasses into the microphone randomly. he was so absorbed in the numbers that his depth perception was off. we all turned to watch the dances.

a large dragon carried by nine men ran about to the rhythm of a large drum and some sort of bell looking thing. the dragon was an incredibly bright shade of green and yellow. the nine men all ran and swooped and dipped the dragon while three smaller dragons danced with some fat man with a mask. the three dragons in the middle were teams of two men. the man in the back would bend all the way over to make the back legs of the dragon. the man in the front would hold the dragon’s head over his own and jump up and down and sway back and forth. the head was connected to the man in the back by a large cloth that made everything look bright. each team would move in unison. they would crouch low to the ground and then jump high in the air. the fat man in the middle was actually a skinny man wearing a prosthetic paunch. he wore a pink mask and carried a fan. he would run among the smaller dragons and they would respond in ways that i could not interpret. i had no idea whether they were all friends or whether the fat man was evil and the dragons were good or whether it was the other way around.

that dance ended and the treasurer stood up again and had some more numbers to report. we sat and listened again to his mumbling which was only interrupted by his glasses banging into the microphone.

the next dance was a group of about forty boys and girls from the high school. they came out and all ran around with fans and long pieces of cloth. the pieces of cloth were in all sorts of colors. there was fluorescent blue, day-glow orange, cosmic pink and bright, bright, green. some of the dancers were leaders and others were followers. some of the girls spent all their energy trying to get everyone to dance in unison and others just giggled and danced oblivious to the beat.

that dance ended. the next dance was less of a dance and more of a stunt show. a large bamboo pole was set up in the middle of the school. it was at least twenty five feet high and one of the members of the dragon team climbed up on it. he reached the top and put on one of the smaller dragon costumes. he proceeded to defy gravity and all laws of rationality for the next five minutes. the crowd was please and he was too.