Temple Fair
Today was the last day of Spring Festival, the Lantern Festival. Allison and I were almost blown up by a giant firework. I have video. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about a sidetrip we took a week and a half ago to another Spring Festival event, the Temple Fair.
Looking across the street to the entrance of the temple.
It's the Year of the Dog, so everything is dog-themed (except the food, luckily).
Everything was festooned with lanterns and fans, and people were walking around with scarecrows, which confused us...but it must have something to do with Spring.
Sugar-glazed fruit skewers are very popular. Most of them are hawthorns, but the ones in the middle had kiwi, pineapple, and a white kiwi-like fruit that's pink and thorny on the outside, and about the size of a mango.
There were a lot of food vendors there. They charged outrageous prices by local standards ($1 US for a skewer), but it tasted good.
Scorpion Skewer, anyone? Not me, I went with the seasoned mutton.
KP's eating what I ate, and Sovannary really didn't like hers, whatever it was.
We stopped to play some carnival games. I got four balls through the hoops and won a dog-mask.
KP got five through the hoops and won a stuffed dog.
Here we are with our prizes.
Eventually I got tired of carrying the mask, so we put it on the dog.
There were a lot of people at the fair. It was a bit like trying to walk in a subway car.
The Temple Fair is a tradition that's been around forever and used to be held on a monthly basis. After the Cultural Revolution it was banned, because taking place at the temple gave it a sense of organized religion (these days, individual-practiced religion and visiting temples seems to be completely kosher, but organized religion is still taboo). Anyway, the people complained and now they are allowed to have Temple Fairs once a year during Spring Festival.
That's it. Someday I'm going to import all of my video of fireworks and then you'll see how ridiculous it is here. Today was the last day for fireworks. Can't say I'm not relieved, but it's a little sad. Hopefully they'll keep this going next year because it was a lot of fun.
Looking across the street to the entrance of the temple.
It's the Year of the Dog, so everything is dog-themed (except the food, luckily).
Everything was festooned with lanterns and fans, and people were walking around with scarecrows, which confused us...but it must have something to do with Spring.
Sugar-glazed fruit skewers are very popular. Most of them are hawthorns, but the ones in the middle had kiwi, pineapple, and a white kiwi-like fruit that's pink and thorny on the outside, and about the size of a mango.
There were a lot of food vendors there. They charged outrageous prices by local standards ($1 US for a skewer), but it tasted good.
Scorpion Skewer, anyone? Not me, I went with the seasoned mutton.
KP's eating what I ate, and Sovannary really didn't like hers, whatever it was.
We stopped to play some carnival games. I got four balls through the hoops and won a dog-mask.
KP got five through the hoops and won a stuffed dog.
Here we are with our prizes.
Eventually I got tired of carrying the mask, so we put it on the dog.
There were a lot of people at the fair. It was a bit like trying to walk in a subway car.The Temple Fair is a tradition that's been around forever and used to be held on a monthly basis. After the Cultural Revolution it was banned, because taking place at the temple gave it a sense of organized religion (these days, individual-practiced religion and visiting temples seems to be completely kosher, but organized religion is still taboo). Anyway, the people complained and now they are allowed to have Temple Fairs once a year during Spring Festival.
That's it. Someday I'm going to import all of my video of fireworks and then you'll see how ridiculous it is here. Today was the last day for fireworks. Can't say I'm not relieved, but it's a little sad. Hopefully they'll keep this going next year because it was a lot of fun.
1 Comments:
When I was in Australia I really wanted to try kangaroo meat but I never got the chance. Are you going to try dog meat or is that a little too much? What about raw octopus? How's mutton?
-Tim
By Anonymous, at 2:17 AM CST
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