Dragon Flight - Jan. 23

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This is a true story.

There is this huge and ugly ogre - Nian (knee-ann) - who goes around gobbling-up people in a big way - usually in winter, usually on the same day. Bummer! By-and-by those left over get tired of this and organize behind one old revolutionary who is ready and willing to stand-up to the tyrant: they beat gongs, set-off fireworks - crash! boom! bang! - and the fearless leader flashes his red knickers at Nian - no kidding! - when he comes down from the mountains for the free lunch he feels entitled to.

Because I am bigger than you are!

But what with all this racket and the scary sight of those audacious knickers, plus all that being-chased-around and no food - Nian gets exhausted, is caught and agrees to go into exile across the waves in Switzerland, where he keeps a big stash of delicacies in a cave to which only he has the combination.

All seems well now - superficially anyway - but people don't trust the arrangement, particularly as the wise old man has wisely moved along, and pushing and pulling among potential successors has taken-on a life of its own - that life not necessarily including the greater whole which feels: no, we can't! So the many are tense - in a holding-pattern - and the few ostensibly aiming to protect them support this tension with gusto and God on our side, by suggesting preemptively leveling Switzerland to ease it. The tension.

But the many can remember Nian's red- and noise-phobias. So they keep decorating their houses with much red once a year - always on the same day. Like with strips of red paper on and around entrances, with hopes and wishes written on them; red posters and red paper-cuts on windows. And making much noise!!!
And those who just have to get to the mall for something they absolutely can't be without - on this day which has become the first day of the year - wear something red to be safe out there: a piece of clothing, a belt, their Louboutins, even just a red thread around a wrist.

Predictably, Nian hasn't returned. Well, who would: Switzerland, with all that free money, reasonably priced cheese and superior chocolate!

But told to never ever trust Nian, protective measures for the many have become a custom on this first day of the New Year - called Guo Nian - The Passing of Nian. And the weeklong festival following it is called Chun Jie - The Spring Festival, because according to the lunar calendar this is the beginning of spring. I know, I know! And this coming year - following the Chinese zodiac - will be the Year of the Dragon: a good guy! But that's another story.

Anyway - back to the beginning of it all. To stimulate the military-industrial complex: their cottage-industry noise-makers - invented by them - have become an export-smash, in great demand for frightening the natives into submission else-and-anywhere. Flashbangs! Beads no more! And importers in more civilized countries have refined these flashbangs by adding an actual kill-component! Applied by merely flicking a switch and watched on screens in the comfort of their rectitude. Bang - you're definitively dead! Just for the hell of it - literally! Death-gamers! How cool is that!

The Chinese word for year is nian as well. So when people today wish each other
Xin nian kuai le! - Happy New Year!
they - at the same time - keep their fingers crossed when remembering the huge and ugly ogre out there somewhere!

Nian wants to be your friend. 

Whatever, on January 23rd - the first day of the Year of the Dragon - it'll be best to wear a little something red!




Just in case!








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