Re: laptops. I am a windows person. The ex had a macbook, and I could sort of use it, but didn't really see the attraction. When the first ipad came out, I had to use it for work - one occasion stayed up until 3am to sync about 2G of photos. Hated its guts. I also have no idea to use an iphone. I'm kinda the tech person in our company, and ever since I figured out how to set up our corporate email on iOS everybody with a new phone comes to me for help with it. It is such an enormous pain in the neck and iphone logic just doesn't seem like earth logic.

Re: Huawei. The whole spyware discussion is a bit of a joke in tech circles over here. If I were to recommend android phones to anyone these days I'd go for a Google Pixel or a Oneplus, depending on location and budget.

swenson19d wrote: »

ETA @noblsheep I love customs of other countries. You have anything you could share with us regarding the Chinese New Year? I think its interesting, your culture is so much older than ours. We are just spoiled brats and you all are wise.

LOL no we are not all wise, that's just something an illusion of continuity does. I certainly don't feel very wise, I just think too much.

Chinese New Year customs. I could talk about this for hours... where to start.

So there are things people commonly relate with CNY celebrations, like giving out money in red envelopes, writing caligraphy on red paper and putting it up, fireworks and firecrackers, homemade dumplings and other food (lots and lots of it), and I have to say it's all true. We really do all of it.

My family is from Shandong which is in northern China, so I can only speak of traditions there. Customs vary wildly in other parts of the country, and between families too so this is just me, one family in one place. We start the actual festivities around the afternoon New Years Eve, when all the relations gather at my grandparents' place, so there are more than a dozen people just chilling around at any given time. I might go out for firecrackers with my cousins and the little ones, and the red caligraphy would go up. We also start making dumplings, which can become an enormous production line with people jumping in and out of the operation. My dumplings always look horrendous so I try to stay out of the actual assembly phase, but I'm quite speedy at cutting and rolling the dough.

(In the past some families would hide a coin in one of the dumplings, and whoever got that coin would have especially good luck and fortune in the coming year. I think my family never did that for hygenic reasons, and I'm sure teeth must have been broken somewhere.)

So dumplings would be made, everyone would sit down and eat, and after dinner the dumpling making would continue, and we'd make enough for the next week or so and freeze them raw so we could just dump some into a pot of boiling water and not have to cook for several days. No time as it gets hectic with all the guests and celebrations. At 8pm, the Spring Festival Gala would begin on TV, and pretty much the whole country would watch it. It's a giant 5 hour production that extends past midnight and it has singing, dancing, magic, comedy etc etc etc. Recent years it's become a bit of a farce because it would try to cater to all ages and all demographics, all while being politically correct. As such things go, it would normally end up only being PC, and all ages and all demographics would join in mocking its PCness. But such is tradition.

Somewhere during this evening, I'd try to slip red envelopes to my grandparents and they would make a big show of trying not to accept it. Then I'd try to give some money to the kiddos, and their parents would make a big show of not wanting it. Which is ridiculous and tiring and longwinded but such is tradition. And I suppose prolongs the process and makes the gift feel more appreciated? I dunno. Funny story - one of my cousins was once bit by a dog when trying to give some tea leaves to a colleague. They got so carried away the pup thought his owner was being attacked.

Then at midnight there would be fireworks outside. Never knew who was lighting them. Some cities have an official fireworks show. Most don't, the random people are more than enough. Recent years, some major cities have banned fireworks, at least in central areas because of the pollution they make.

That's the overall gist of it. Lots of other details and stories around Chinese New Year but this post is long enough already...

shanaber wrote: »

@noblsheep - how are the New Year celebrations? I have heard they are very toned down this year because of the virus.

Yeah this year the gov has asked everyone to stay in place and not travel if possible - it's not restricted but going to another province needs a negative covid test no more than a week old, and then a bunch of other red tape once you get there. And then you'd have to come back a week later and do it all over again. I'd say more than half the people I know are not going anywhere this year so no big family dinners or house parties and whatnot. I've always found New Year festivities to be a bit of a drag and all I wanted was some peace and quiet. But now I kinda miss having real people to be around. Yes even the shrill annoying smaller sized ones.

Speaking of which our company had an open day for kids today, it being the last day before the holiday. Spent the morning hanging out with other people's preschoolers. A three year old was forced to explain to me that all his cars were in a big explosion and now he really needed the tow truck from the top shelf. Great stuff.