July 4th in China

Since we aren’t in the US, celebrating the 4th of July seemed to be out of the question. Well….not so fast my friends. Put together a group of Americans in a country where fireworks are easy to obtain and you’ve got a recipe for a loud, light show. Oddly enough, the Drunken Chef (an English Pub…..think of the irony of that) has an all day BBQ to celebrate the 4th. Just as a side note, the past several years “back in the States” (Jacob’s new expression) we’ve celebrated the 4th with the Pitts (and neighbors), so there’s a high bar to clear when you are talking 4th of July cookout. For those that know him, Keith is a Grill Master and for many years was the “head chef” at the soccer fields cooking burgers and dogs for all of the CYS soccer fans (the spatula was handed off and taken by neighbor Dan). Keith and Evva put on a terrific spread and then mysteriously there are fireworks in the neighborhood just after dark (darn pyromaniacs, we all know that fireworks are illegal in Georgia so we were always tempted to turn those criminals in as was our civic duty). So this was our benchmark for a 4th celebration.

I showed up at the Chef around 4:15 with the boys to prepare for the celebration. They’ve got a grill set up outside with a rotisserie spit containing turkey and chicken. Pork has been cooked and is set aside in a BBQ sauce along with onions and other “fixins”. Sausages, dogs and believe it or not something like cracklins is on the grill being cooked. But we’re on a mission, we’re meeting early to go and collect fireworks. If you’re unfamiliar with China’s history on fireworks, you should Google it sometime because I don’t have the time to write it all down today. Suffice it to say that fireworks are always available here and you’ll hear them going off a lot (no real reason needed, sometimes it’s just because you can). We know where there is a store that sells fireworks so we plan and walk off to see what we can find. We arrive at the store and begin to look over what’s available. Mike and Eric led the charge with Mike translating what the shop owner was saying. Warren and Jacob kind of sat back and watched as the amount of fireworks built up. We decided to put in 200 RMB each and ended up with 1,000 RMB to purchase fireworks. How many shots in that box? How high does it go? How many colors? What’s the price? Is it loud? What about that box, what’s in there? How many should we get? We worked our way through the list….firecracker string 2,000 firecrackers [check]…..loud mortars [check], ground fountain fireworks [check]….100 shot mortars [check]….grand finale box [check]. As we went down the list (which wasn’t really a list, it was more of a review down the shelves of the store. Just to clarify, it was more like a convenience store rather than a fireworks store that can be found just across the GA border in AL or SC.), we began to realize that we had a lot of fireworks and somehow we had to transport them to the Chef from our current location. We also were drawing a crowd in the store as more Chinese came by to watch and see what the white devils were purchasing. Heck, I was interested in what we were purchasing, I’m sure they were just as curious to know why we were buying so many fireworks. Finally, we had spent our allotment of 1,000 RMB and we had all of the bases covered so it was time to get our treasure to the Chef.

It was decided to find a rickshaw and have the fireworks transported via that vehicle as opposed to carrying it back. It took a couple of minutes but we were able to flag down a driver to assist us in getting the show back to the Chef. Once we had the items loaded, someone had to ride along to be sure the driver took everything back to the right spot (as opposed to selling them on the next street corner, somehow I think we could’ve easily chased him down if we thought he was making a break for it). Due to my relatively narrow frame (shut up) I was given the honors. I left the kids with Uncle Eric and squeezed in the back of the rickshaw to ride along with the explosives (smoke ‘em if you got ‘em). This was my first experience with the rickshaw and I’m not sure I’ll take another ride. I think I am too tall since my view was obstructed by the roof but I could see out the sides enough to see that they drive these “vehicles” like any other taxis (Outta my way ya horses a__). I phoned ahead to let Tammy & others at the Chef know that I was on my way and I would need assistance getting the items from the rickshaw into the building. I indicated I had traded Warren for the fireworks and Jacob for the rickshaw ride (now that was some good bargaining). Once at the Chef, we unloaded the items and placed them in a cool, dark place until it was time.

Now to the food, I once again state that there was a high hurdle to clear based on our recent 4ths. The food was okay but it didn’t meet the standards we expected and we missed out on the hot dogs (they ran out and had these things that were like hot dogs but were white…..if a hot dog is pink from “meat by products”, what makes them turn white…or more specifically what kind of “meat” is inside the casings?) and there weren’t any burgers if you didn’t order from the menu. I guess for a Brit the BBQ was okay but it wasn’t what Tammy and I had expected; far too much money for what was available. The kids ate so that’s all that really mattered (although a nice Nathan’s hot dog really would have hit the spot {sigh}).

On to the fireworks, right after dark we went out to the backside of the Chef. The back entrance opened into the courtyard of an apartment complex……yes, six story apartments on all 4 sides; the ideal spot for fireworks. Keep in mind that over the past 4 months in China I’ve been woken up by fireworks on multiple occasions (not at 9:00 am but 6:00 am and well past 10:00 pm) so it’s payback time (well, do you feel lucky….punk). Eric is the Master of Ceremonies and does the honors of lighting the ‘works off. We had some really good and loud stuff. There were smaller mortars that shot up with a loud bang and then when they got up to about 10 meters, blew up with a really loud bang. Then we had the 80 and 100 shot boxes of mortars with the loud bang. We had two other large boxes, one with 50 shots and another with 36 shots. The 36 shot box was the grand finale since it was the largest (and therefore the best….size does matter when it comes to fireworks). It put up a really good display and we had a pretty good size crowd come out and watch what the foreigners were doing. Every bang echoed off the buildings and put out enough noise to be heard for several blocks, I’m sure some were visible as well since I know the big boxes shot up higher than the buildings around us. It was a good show for American Independence Day considering we were in China (again consider the irony). Next year we’ll head back to the Chef with more reasonable expectations from the food but with higher expectations for the show. We hope everyone had a great 4th. Some coming attractions; read about the Dudley family’s first visit to Auchan and perhaps a post about my visit to Shanghai 3 weeks ago. Don't forget to check out the links for photos (to be uploaded real soon) and videos of the festivities.