This is the one time in the year where Shanghai sleeps, or at least naps. In actual fact, it just closes its eyes for a second. Whatever the definition, it's quiet. That's right it's Chinese New Year time – the festival where for foreigners stranded here not a lot happens.
Most book their escape from the oncoming nothingness months or at least weeks in advance. That of course, is only a microscopic migration when compared to the Chinese one, where just about everyone returns to their home towns to reunite with their families.
As soon as I step outside my apartment building it reminds me of a good old-fashioned end of the world type of scenario, something where every person has vanished off the face of the earth. Unfortunately I have to contain myself from the first obvious impulse of pillaging and looting – as besides having conversations with yourself that's what being the Omega Man is all about.
So I leave my building and as I resist the urge to pillage I notice something extremely rare here: it's quiet... too quiet. There are no abnormally loud conversations going on, no industrial equipment pulverising for pleasure and most telling, no cars. There's always an underlying noise that's more perceived rather than actually heard; the din of traffic, of life going about its business. And now as there is no business, there's also no din.
It's also something that hits your eyes as well as your ears with only the odd soul or two wandering the streets. Maybe like me, thinking they're the only one who has been left behind but they're more likely paying respects to friends and neighbours. The prettily (or the negative amongst us might say, gaudily) package filled with fruit tends to give it away.
It's actually comforting to see that despite the proliferation of flat screen TVs into this society, fruit is still the gift of choice for CNY. That's probably because you can't use a word play with it, unlike an orange, which becomes a proxy for a gift of long life. A Gameboy can't do that – well, not yet anyway.
Besides the inevitable silence (fireworks and crackers not included) of this time of year, the other thing that tends to happen is that something inevitably breaks. As it's winter, where one can enjoy evenings of minus something or rather degrees, my favourite breakage is the heating system.
And one evening that's what happened.
The heating and television died, yet strangely, not all of the lights. The beauty of living in an apartment complex is that all you need to do in response to these problems is pick up the hotline to the doorman sitting (or sleeping) at the building’s entrance. I suppose he’s not really a doorman as he opens nothing, however, he’s less of a guard as he lets everybody in.
So I rang the guy who naps at the front door and said in terrible Chinese that there’s no electricity. This is actually easier than it sounds as long as you know the words for ‘electricity’ and ‘stop’. Actually, he probably had no idea what I was saying but was curious to discover what I was all excitable about. He didn’t realise that it doesn’t take much. Cheese would do it, or even blinking lights.
Eventually an electrician arrived, where he proceeded to do meaningful things like turn the light switch on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off. He also inspected the small switchboard room for the entire floor, accessible just outside my apartment.
So after another turn of the light switch on, off, on, off, he came to the conclusion that the electricity bill had not been paid and someone from that company had taken it on themselves to pull out a couple of fuses. To prove his point he shone his flashlight to the part of the switchboard room that should have contained those very fuses.
It would seem, according Sherlock Electrician, that a worker from the electricity company crept into the switchboard room about 11pm, during the most revered public holiday no less, and stole two out of possible whatever fuses in order to teach me a lesson. No warning, no total switch off (as apparently without paying your bill you can still enjoy lights), nada.
After a long defense of his theory the electrician finally acquiesced to temporarily replacing the fuses until something could be sorted out when life resumed in a week. Funny how the company could send someone over to cause trouble yet was probably closed. Strange no?
Needless to say (but obviously I’ll say it anyway) it sounded like a whole lot of rubbish to me but my main concern was not to let my apartment turn into a freezer. Given the concrete box of my apartment that would take about an hour.
So thinking everything was sorted, you could imagine the joy when the resumption of power lasted for 20 minutes. Perhaps the alarm bells went off at the electricity company and they needed to dispatch another fuse ninja.
Once again on this festive evening the electrician was called. He tinkered in the fuse room briefly and all was well again. Although I didn’t believe his hypothesis I still thanked him for his help in returning things to normal. It’s then he asked for a ‘hong bao’ meaning, a red package.
Traditionally at this time of year people place money in red paper envelopes to give as gifts to family, friends, employees and apparently even people who return your power in the middle of the night. Oh and also, as these are considered gifts they’re not usually asked for. It was brazen. So much so, that as it was out of context I at first didn’t know what he was referring to. I’m slow.
In these instances my mind isn’t so much a computer but more like an abacus slowly being manipulated by a one-arm monkey. However, I eventually got there and I’m pretty sure he would have been aware of that too. My look would have given that away as my p…p…p… poker face is anything but.
You see, at the time my little one-armed monkey abacus was working overtime I was beginning to suspect our handy electrician may have set this all up himself. Ignorant foreigners stranded in the cold may be grateful to have the heat returned – and on a holiday too. They may even pay a reward if prompted. Of course I had no proof, nor the vocab to accuse him. Besides, he knew where my fuses were.
His smile also seemed to recede as my failure or unwillingness to comply with the niceties of the season put a dampener on his evening. Share the cold is what I always.
With little cheer he left and we all (in my opinion) continued the facade of investigating matters further. The electricity provider was called and a worker made an inspection. Surprisingly nothing was amiss.
So I’d say next time I should enjoy this slumber season with an eye open.
