Well, New Year’s Day has come and gone and the Chinese New year is rapidly approaching. Having a Chinese wife, I am always aware of the date of the Chinese New Year and this year is no exception. As a result , my mind has been drifting back to the time I spent in China in general and to the five Spring Festivals that I enjoyed while living in the Middle Kingdom.

Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year, is a 15-day celebration that, much like the holidays in America, at times seems like both a blessing and a curse.

Each of my Spring Festivals in China was different but all were enjoyable in their own way. One, however, stands out in my mind because I spent it mostly alone.

I taught at a university in southern China and the schools over there shut down completely for about five weeks for the New Year. When I say shut down, I mean shut down. Most if not all of the students leave to go home to their families, as does many of the staff members and teachers. A university campus in China becomes a virtual ghost town during Spring Festival.

During the holiday that I am thinking of, Li went home to visit her family in another province while I stayed behind due to other commitments. What I remember most was being absolutely isolated for the better part of two weeks. About all I could do is go for walks or watch TV, albeit in Chinese.

Bored to tears, I made a big mistake on the day of New Years Eve. I decided to go downtown, look around, and maybe buy a few gifts to surprise Li on her return. My intentions were noble but my thinking was seriously flawed. The last thing you want to do in China is go somewhere during the holiday. The entire country is on the move and all forms of transportation are packed to the gills.

I went to the street and caught a bus downtown. Big Mistake. Imagine if you will the entire population of Ardmore squeezed into Fred’s and you might have some idea of what a Chinese bus is like during Spring Festival.

Pressing my way through the throng, I found one vacant seat next to an octogenarian man with two teeth. Soon after squeezing into my seat I felt a sharp pain the vicinity of my right knee. Then I felt it again. Looking down, I discovered that the old man had a burlap sack at his feet and in the sack was a live goose, no doubt the guest of honor at some l lucky family’s dinner table that very night.

The goose’s head and neck were sticking out of the top of the sack and the man had a string tied to his wrist that led down into the sack and was tied to the goose’s foot. Geese have never been known for possessing a Gandhi-like temperament and this one was no exception. The goose repeatedly bit my leg during the entire journey downtown, some 12 miles to be exact.

Each time the goose would attack my leg, the old man would slap it across the head with a folded up magazine. The goose would let out a honk, shake it off, and attack my leg with renewed vigor. I was glad to get off the bus so I could at least save my leg and begin to engage in another favorite Chinese Spring Festival tradition: price gouging.

During the holidays, the price of everything in China goes up, sometimes as much as 20 times the normal rate. Needless to say my shopping foray was short due to inflated prices and constant haggling. Discouraged, I made yet another mistake.

Still smarting from my experience with the goose, I opted for a taxi back to the campus, rather than risk the perils of another bus ride. What I didn’t realize was that I had climed into a seemingly innocuous Volkswagon Santana with the Chinese equivalent of Emerson Fitipaldi.

Just before I was pushed back in the seat by G forces, I heard a loud thud as h drove his heavy right boot through the firewall. I won’t go into all the gory details of the ride back to campus except to say that we only stopped once, drove on both sides of the road, and spent a few hair raising minutes on the sidewalk.

Clipping the right rear edge of a vehicle carrying a load of caged porkers, the Santana spun sideways, jumped a curb and came to rest precariously close to an outdoor stand selling, of all things, fried goose necks.

I finally made it back to the campus with a goose-pecked leg, a racing pulse, and memories of Spring Festival that I will long cherish.