Fiery Monkey

In South Africa especially this year the monkey has became a taboo in terms of racism but the Chinese, the Year of the Monkey is about to start on the 8 February, not just any monkey but a fiery monkey.

In the Chinese calendar, there are 12 animals which are allocated a year, and associated with the animals are 5 elements, metal, water, wood, fire, and earth which means that Fire and Monkey combination recur every 60 years. So what does this Fiery Monkey mean to the Chinese, well to them this year will be an ambitious and adventurous, but irritable year.

The weeks leading up the Chinese New Year are celebrated in different places around Johannesburg with the first welcoming of the New Year tonight at the Old Chinatown which has the best fireworks display anywhere in South Africa and the only one I really enjoy because it is in downtown Joburg CBD, far far away from any animals and pets. Next Sunday will be the main event at the Nan Hua Temple Buddhist temple outside Bronkhorstspruit. The following Saturday 13 February will be New Chinatown’s turn of welcoming the monkey in.

No I am not a Buddhist but I enjoy going to Old Chinatown for the awesome fireworks display. This photo below is my favourite of the evening because there is something about it that intrigues me especially that person on the bottom right. It was taken handheld with my point and shoot Canon camera on the wrong settings. The overall affect is a blurred photo that has this eerie feel to it. Not a planned affect but I love it. To me it shows how distorted the world has become with a vague hazy view what is to come when we try to make sense of the future.

The following photo was taken with my Samsung cellphone of the same scene seconds apart as my favourite photo. This one shows that maybe we should change this Year of the Monkey and call it the Year of the Cellphone.

To see more photos of the celebrations, check out my Facebook album Fiery Monkey

Year of the Horned Creature in Detention

With the Chinese horse finally bolted out of the stable, in prances this horned creature or animal. Is it a goat? Is it a sheep? Is it a Ram? Or is it just maybe Pan? Could this be an entire year lost in translation?

Mystified I joined friends in the Old China Town cloaked in the shadow of the notorious John Vorster Square and the dreaded Security Branch of the Apartheid Government’s Police Force, but today we joined in mass to celebrate the coming in of the new Chinese year, the Year of the Horned Creature aka Goat, Sheep, or Ram, with loud bangs and lots of fireworks.

So as the echoes from Chris van Wyk’s poem "In Detention" ran through my mind as blasts of crackers blew up near me under the skies which sparkled against the chocking smoke as the tears of the rain began to fall.

He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.

All this while ominously looming over China Town. Bang! Bang! Wohoooosh!

Back to the New Year. The Mandarin Chinese character羊 denoting this new year means a horned animal of sorts which covers quite a lot of animals. Sheep are cute but not known to be leaders, more follow the pack. Goats tend to be more on the evil side but very tasty according to traditional culture. Rams on the other hand are more manly, aggressive and sadly alone. Then we have Pan. A wild mischievous mythical creature/god that was half goat half human, ahhh Puck of my Shakespearian youth.

So if you do follow the Chinese calendar, pray tell what year are we entering into? Is it the Year of the tasty Goat? Or are you going to be aggressive and say it is the Year of the Ram? Or are you going to follow the pack and say it is the Year of the Sheep? Or is it the Year of the Pan, full of wild mischievous abandonment?

Happy New Year

I want to wish all my Chinese friends a Happy New Year. To celebrate with then we spent the evening with them down in Old Chinatown, Johannesburg. I must say the fireworks were load and spectacular. They just went on and on and on and just when I thought that is it, on they went some more. Using my point and shoot Canon S100 camera hand held, I took some awesome photographs. I have posted them in my  Old Chinatown Fireworks album on Facebook.