Eric's Beijing Diary

World War III out there again tonight. It's called the "Lantern Festival," sorta the capstone celebration of the Chinese New Year period. One last chance to blow off a little steam. People take out the fireworks they haven't burned up yet, and set it off. In a way, the lantern festival is good, because there is a general feeling that the celebration time is over, and it's time to get back to work. Because of the Olympics this year, the spring school semester was scheduled to begin a week early. But I don't think that is generally a good thing to do. Too many students just blow off the first week of school and come back a week late. The Spring Festival period is a pretty strong tradition, and one might as well respect it.

Many years ago, during the Mingguo (1912 revolution -- 1949 revolution) Period, Chiang Kai-shek decided that Spring Festival should be abolished. The western countries didn't have this tradition, and he figured that China could dispense with it as well. So he announced this policy to the country, and then traveled throughout the countryside to ensure that people were following it. Sure enough, workers were all in their offices. And they were doing absolutely nothing. He had to admit defeat and give up the idea. Traditions die hard, especially traditions that are so deeply ingrained in the thinking and experience of a people, and especially traditions that offer precious rare reprieve for hard working people in a peasant society.