China Blog #7

We did have a little action last night.  Yesterday was the Chinese new year, and you can imagine the fireworks readily available around here.  They are sold on every street corner in town and are pretty cheap even by Chinese standards.  They are banned by SIAS on the SIAS campus for some reason or another, so instead, several of the girls got Chinese lantern balloons, I think they are called?  They are big paper balloon things that you light a little piece of paraffin underneath it so it fills up with hot air in a few minutes and takes off into the night.  Pretty much sounds like premeditated arson, huh? Well, the police thought so too. (The campus security guards are actually Chinese police)  Here he comes flying around the corner, in his little electric golf cart, red lights flashing, yelling "Noooooooooo, no-no-no-no-no-no-noooo!" as if we about to push the button to launch a nuclear attack, and smelling like a Chinese distillery.   He then proceeded to confiscate the rest of them and then Michaela, always the plucky one, starts railing at him in Chinese, which brings over her fiance to her defense, all shouting in Chinese.  It was a little intense, but it is hard to get too worked up by one Chinese cop, with no gun and half drunk and with about 12 of us, so I didn't think there was going to be any police brutality going on.  But he hauled off Jonathan in the cart. We didn't know much what was going on, and was left wondering if their was going to be a wedding after all. But anyway, here he came later, no worse for wear.  He didn't get the Chinese Lantern Balloons back, though. Sheesh! Leave it to the Valdois to get in trouble with the Fuzz!