All this week (and the end of last week) people have been getting ready for Chinese new year, which is tonight apparently. There seems to be a very precise day by day structure to the preparations and it goes like this:

Friday 5th of February: Just after sundown a few fire works are let off around the place to make sure they will work on the appointed night.
Saturday 6th of February: Again, more fireworks are tested to be on the safe side.
Sunday 7th of February: People from all over town come out past the 5th ring road (where we are) to make sure that their fireworks are loud and bright enough.
Monday 8th of February: Fireworks are noisliy tested from sundown, sporadically until around 10pm.
Tuesday 9th of February: Fireworks are noisliy tested until 10pm to be double sure, but some entrepreneurs
started before the sun went down to make sure that while checking to make sure they were loud enough, they weren’t distracted by the pretty colours.
Wednesday 10th of February: The early testing has caught on in earnest. From about lunch time on, the sporadic exploding of fireworks punctuates conversation better than any knowing glance ever could.
Thursday 11th of February: Early testing, while effective, doesn’t determine how many school children will rush to the windows to see what’s going on outside, unless of course you spend half an hour setting off explosives loudly in front of a school. Night time testing continues unabated, but now goes on strong until 11pm with even more people contributing so now there is rarely a moment with no explosions. The reasoning behind this phase of testing is to see how well the neighbouring windows and roof tiles stand up to the vibrations produced by the near armageddon level of noise.
Friday 12th of February: the final night time test begins well before sundown; approximately 8 hours before. While sporadic in places the volume reaches a peak of solid noise around 10 pm which lasts until just after midnight. This last is to make sure that those who choose not to join in on the real event will be too tired from lack of sleep so that they won’t haul themselves out with weapons the next night.
Saturday 13th of February: Day time testing is sporadic as most people are sleeping so that they don’t miss an ear splitting moment after midnight tonight.

I have a jeep and a supersoaker. It will be minus 14 degrees tonight. I wonder how I could use those three things to put a dampner* on the noise.

*Pun intended.

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