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Rudely Awakened  by Mo Rui Qiu
In the wee hours of the morning, I was peacefully sleeping…
that was until 5:00am when thunderous noise rocked our
street. The ear-splitting blasts grew more intense, continuing for over forty-five minutes! At the very end, the racket became deafening. I was quite grumpy that these predawn firecrackers had so rudely interrupted my sleep. What on earth was going on out there?

Later, I got up to investigate and I saw shreds of red firecracker wrappers littering the doorway of the house across the street. A thin red streamer, with Chinese writing on it, flapped in the breeze above the front door. Joss sticks and candles were burning outside the front door, on the second floor, and on the third floor. Even though the house was still under construction, people were going in and out of the house.

Moving House
Bamboo scaffolding masks the house where this “move-in-day” ceremony occurred.

Jingxi, Guangxi

A lady, who is the owner of the not-yet-completed house, welcomed me to come in. She offered me a stool and served me sweet, sticky glutinous rice balls. When I asked what all of the hubbub was about, she said it was “move-in-day.” I pointed out that the house wasn’t finished yet, and it didn’t appear that they were moving furniture in. She explained that it had been a year since they started building the house and the local Taoist priest said they had to have this “moving in ceremony” now. They had paid him 50 yuan to decipher which day was the most auspicious day for saying incantations, hanging the streamer with spell-like words, and lighting the candles and joss sticks. She said that later in the day, many friends would come there to eat lunch with them. Then I asked why they couldn’t wait until a bit later in the day for the firecrackers. Sure enough, the priest had also determined the hour of the 5:00am firecracker serenade. Ah-hah…so all this obnoxious noise before sunrise was his doing!