The last time I wrote about my time in China was during the Olympics and how my pride of being a Chinese has swollen to unprecedented levels. It was there during the Olympics that I cemented what has been brewing inside of me for ages, yet I could not place a name to that feeling. Now I know - national pride.
This time round I found myself in China during the Lunar New Year for the first time since setting foot in South Africa in 1991. Red banners and paired poetry stickers decorate every front door of every house. For the first time ever I saw a Hong Kong that was quiet and without the usual buzz of activity. In Shenzhen and my home town, children and adults alike decorated the skyline with fireworks of varying sizes and shapes and the night was illuminated unlike any other way possible. Policeman running around in Shenzhen trying to stop people from setting off fireworks that flew barely higher than the average skyscrapers - yet I suspect that even they knew how futile the attempts are at stopping this cultural pastime.
I left Hong Kong on the 2nd for Shenzhen and stayed a night there in the "Watercube" massage parlour - the latest and most luxurious addition to the already impressive lineup. I got there at around 8:30pm after noodles at a fairly random restaurant I saw around.
The next morning I woke up and got onto the first bus to my home town. I brought the last ticket and so ended up at the last row sandwhiched between a family of four. The trip was fairly quick and painless thanks to plenty of reading and listening material (audiobooks)
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