Friday 27th January, 2017  Chinese New Year’s Eve                        0130

And today I am supposed to thoroughly clean my home. Have a haircut (did that anyway), hang couplets outside my front door and then hide my broom. The dirt in my home apparently represents last year’s bad luck.

For starters I may well give it a sweep but not out of superstition and as for bad luck? I never had any good luck last year. I lost a holiday (and money) and a job, then spent a fortune moving to a new job so I’m not buying into that theory!

No, nothing to report from yesterday. A quick visit to the beer shop and the vegetable stall sums up my day. If I knew an hotel downtown where I might be able to join a party tomorrow night I might be tempted to join it and check in but it is 99% certain  I shall be here having spent an hour or so preparing lasagnes for freezing. I am sure there will be fireworks even though I personally have seen none on sale.

The isolation intensifies at this time of year in China anyway. People have to be with their families, it’s their duty, and anyway all the people I know here are students leaving or school staff who only interact with me because it is their job. There is one person I would love to have here right now but she is I assume at home with her folks in Suzhou in Anhui and I would go there in a flash if I could afford it.

1600

Amazingly although the little supermarket was closed when I went out just now, a smaller one opposite was open. I needed milk because I discovered mine had gone off when I made myself curdled coffee this morning. I had hoped there would be something going on in the square today and took my camera but nothing doing. Then to the beer shop (which also sells milk but they made me buy a great big box of the stuff the one time I did get some from them) and then I needed a carrot for tomorrow’s roast.

Only the bottom three stalls were still open, the first two are purely fruit, the third does veg, eggs and live poultry. I was rather hoping they didn’t have any pigeons for sale, given my promise to set any free as a new year gesture to save them from the dinner table. Unfortunately for me they had three.

I asked how much they were and was taken aback when I discovered they were 50y each. They weren’t even big ones. But I said I would do it and so I handed over money for all three. The owner then opened the cage door and one tried to escape. He shoved it back in the cage and his son came with a witches broom to ensure they couldn’t get out. I gestured for them to get back, turned the cage with the opening facing the road and shooed the birds out, only for the son to farcically start chasing them and trying to catch them again!

I shouted “BOO!!” (No in Chinese) and everyone, customers included, looked on in disbelief as the birds, seemingly surprised by the sudden freedom, wandered on the road for a second or two before an oncoming car prompted them to take flight, with me wishing them happy new year from the ground.

I am in no doubt that all present viewed me as a crackpot foreigner but the wife of the owner, as I left, treated me to a huge grin and a thumbs up. She, aside from having made a profit, at least understood what I had done.

Just maybe that will get me some good luck during the next lunar year.