Chinese New Year is not very Chinese in China

And we're back! For those who don't know, this week has been Chinese New Year so I've been spending a bit more time with friends who otherwise would be at work every day.

_{2018, the year of the Dog}

CNY is a time for the biggest human migration in the history of humanity with almost 400 million chinese people leaving the cities back to their hometowns, countless others going abroad and an unknown number of rural folk moving into the cities for vacation.

This is a time I find kind of interesting. Going into the subway for example, something that is a few minutes' walk from my apartment and practically a daily aspect of my life, is something astonishingly futuristic and new for the country folk visiting after saving up for 20 years. Seriously, I've seen numerous citizens amazed by the escalators, confusingly jumping onto it and then laughing with giddy excitement to their family.

The less interesting part is the sharp increase of people defecating in the metro or on the streets... to them it's kinda normal. When you gotta go, you gotta go!

The streets are typically filled with louder, more cheerful individuals in the main central city areas - tourists - but the numbers on the whole are generally smaller, the roads emptier (far from empty). It's a miniature transformation of the city of Shanghai.

On the 16th, the actual day of CNY, silence was at its maximum. You'd expect a mass of fireworks and celebrations - and this used to be the case. I remember not being able to sleep well because right outside my bedroom window at the crack of dawn, fire crackers would be going off, and all down the streets you'd here individual fireworks.

That was until the actual New Year of 2014 when a giant human stampede happened by the riverside where the iconic city skyline was showing off, crushing and stomping 36 people to death and injuring 50 more. Ahh, China.

_{Many deaths took place here}

Since then, the streets are lined with an infinite number of police cars and riot vans with more of them slowly patrolling even the most residential of apartment blocks. The sky is lined with red-blue flashes of silence as everybody sits at home to 'spend time with their family', which I think translates as 'watches people enjoy Chinese New Year on TV'.

I found this the biggest of disappointments, though not at all surprising. Shanghai authorities have a long term habit of revoking all aspects of fun and entertainment; street performances, bars and clubs, tv shows, you name it. If it's a little bit too enjoyable, it's ban-able.

Cracking down is something of a hobby for them. Not a week goes by when you hear of a crackdown of drugs, or immigrants, of expats, of foreign businesses, of cheese, of VPNs, of CryptoCurrency, of nightlife, etc etc. To me this makes Shanghai one of the most boring megacities on earth.

If you go to Seoul, South Korea, where I lived from 2010-2012, you will find them celebrating Chinese New Year to a beautiful extent, as well as buddha's birthday, Spring festival and more. The streets were filled with parades; glowing lanterns, giant fire breathing dragon models surrounded by percussive performances and dancers. You could stand in one place for hours watching them travel past you without seeing an end. I'm not exaggerating here. My friends and I actually gave up out of exhaustion trying to see the end of one such performance.

Stages for musical and dance talent performances were all over the city, rivers filled with glowing lanterns and boats, the streets covered with decorations and street performers. It was beautiful everywhere you went.

Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam also makes effort, with every road in the city covered with lights reminiscent of Christmas in the west. Crowds would gather in infinite numbers to see a fireworks display and everybody would generally be having fun.

Here? It's almost as if everybody is under curfew; almost no sign that Chinese New Year ever happened, other than perhaps some red themed dog-related decorations in shopping malls. It's pretty sad to say that the countries surrounding China seem to be more Chinese than China. The spirit feels very much lost here in Shanghai if nowhere else.

So for me, I sat at home, playing Monster Hunter with friends or hopping round to play board games or watch 'Your Name' or whatever. It's been nice for sure, just not very celebratory.

For the Chinese among us, it's even worse. You see, vacations aren't very real for most Chinese citizens. They're more like a re-shuffling of schedules. If there's a 3 day public holiday, you have to work 3 Saturdays, or a couple of weekends to make up for it. If it's a week holiday, well, you just have to work your arse off practically non stop for a while. For many, holidays don't really exist; it's an illusion to keep them docile.

Could I have gone abroad, a trip to Thailand perhaps? Not really. With the migration of 1.4 billion people going on, flights, trains, pogo sticks and whatever else have been book months in advance, full to the brim. If you think it's a good idea to travel by car, well, be prepared for a 10 day traffic jam:

If I did manage to swipe a ticket, I'd be going to what would basically be an extension of China; hundreds of thousands of Chinese in noisy group tours ruining every public space there is.

In fact, Chinese have such a bad reputation worldwide, some countries have banned some of them or at least provided heavy restrictions; those with a lot of money in their accounts may go because if you're rich, you're well-behaved. At least that's the thought.

Switzerland has even introduced a Chinese-only train, and banned them from regular trains because they're too loud and too rude for Swiss folk. In Thailand, Chinese were caught peeing into sacred rivers and fighting, in Egypt they were found carving graffiti into 3,500 year old temples. In Vietnam, they were found eating endangered and protected sealife. Even North Korea isn't safe, with tourists throwing candy at their kids and picking them up without permission and generally breaking every rule in the book; loud, rude, spitting and so on.

Numerous airlines have had Chinese citizens breaking out into fights, stealing cutlery, getting wasted and dangerous, even shitting on the aisle of the plane.

If you think this is racist perception, think again. Naturally, these individuals do not represent every Chinese person, but the rest of the country are left to feel shame and humiliation, as expressed often online, especially when Chinese tourists still in China are found taking selfies with a slowly dying dolphin.

Many Chinese make effort to express their frustration; their reputation as an individual is increasingly being lowered by other peoples' actions. Feel free to enjoy this amazing video of a Chinese lady complaining about Chinese tourists ruining it for everybody else in Thailand:

Back in the homeland, the government is not unaware of this either. An entire rule book has been published that tourists have to sit through before going abroad, with golden rules such as:

DO NOT

• Call Africans "Negroes" or "black"
• Touch antiques or draw graffiti on heritage structures
• Eat a whole piece of bread in one mouthful or slurp noodles noisily inside an aircraft
• Expose the chest or back, or look dirty in public areas
• Touch people's belongings in Nepal with the foot

Embassies release similar rules, like these from the Chinese embassy in Singapore:

DO NOT

• Take the life vests and blankets off the plane.
• Take the ashtray or bath towels from guest rooms.
• Use towels or bed sheets to wipe your shoes.
• Evade bus fare.
• Bring durian (a fruit known for its strong odor) on public transportation.

Tour guides that have individuals break these and many other rules built to respect local culture and generally be respectable will be fined up to $50,000, so there's plenty of incentive to behave.

Since these rules have come out, one Chinese shouted about a bomb in his luggage 'out of boredom'. At least two others flicked coins into the jets of their planes for 'good luck', and other tourists were founding exercising, naked on public beaches.

I've had some personal experiences too, with one distinct memory of a Chinese woman sticking her smelly, bare foot through the crack of the seat on the plane onto the arm of my chair. Well at least she was well rested! I've also personally witnessed the aforementioned defecation routines in the subway 3 times, so generally this holiday is best spent indoors, I say.

It will continue until 21st or 22nd, but I will make my presence more known here on steemit, having exhausted my supply of energy dedicated to sitting around doing nothing. I may or may not reignite WHAT I LEARNT THIS WEEK today but failing that; tomorrow.

For anybody else out there enjoying the rest of CNY; be respectful but more importantly, educate your fellow countryfolk how to behave! (STEEM could do with a similar kind of rule book, come to think of it).

Thanks for reading!