Everlasting Blossoms

 C-2 Renew a sweet experience of bygone days--(last part)--

       In the olden days around Chinese New Year season, the people in Peking loved to watch the fireworks. That kind of fireworks were very different from nowadays. After the firework shoot into the air, it exploded into thousands of sparkles. Suddenly those sparkles may change into some thing else such as an ax, or a cup, or even a war chariot, etc..... Yu Wen told her children the best firework she'd ever watched was at Dung An Men when she was about 6 years old. One of Lyan's long term worker carried her on his shoulder, because she was too short to be standing in the middle of the crowd.

  As Yu wen remembered that:

  After she heard a loud:「Bang!」 There was a big fire ball floating up into the sky. Suddenly the fire ball changed into a knight sating on a horseback. It floated in the air for a little while and starting to fade away. Those fading sparklers in the sky changed into a house. When the house starting to fade away, there was a big cluster of grapes. One by one, the grapes busted. Then the sky returned to it's darkness again!

  The old technique and skill of making these kind of fireworks must be failed to be handed down from the past generations. For Yu Wen had never seen anything similar the rest of her life. Every time when her was telling this story, her grandchildren thought their Granny was tell a magical cartoon story.

  "Tyan-Chyau" in Peking was another attraction to Chinese. Tyan-Chyau was a stone flyover. In the olden days, each year at the winter solstice the emperor would cross over this flyover from the palace to Tyan-Tan to offer sacrifices to gods. Many years later, the river dried, and the riverbed was filled and leveled up, the flyover was torn down, but people still call that place Tyan-Chyau. This place became the biggest recreation area. Lots of small businesses moved in. It was a place for all kinds of folk artists to show their talent and specialties as well. There were varieties of booths for snacks, pastries.  The Sugar-figure Blowing art was one of Yu Wen's favorite. The folk artist put some sugar into a small pot which was placed on a small burner. Stirring with a small bamboo stick until the sugar melted into thick liquid. He pick up some melted sugar, hot and soft. He poked a tiny copper pipe into that small chunk of sugar and blow it. At the same time with his two magical hands he shaped the soft sugar into different kind of figurines that Chinese people all familiar with. Such as the Big Fat Pig, the Rocky Monkey, Buddha Maitreya, etc..... You name it, he'll make it for you. Buddha Maitreya was always Yu Wen's first choice. Because each time when you push it's big fat belly, some honey will drop out from the bottom of the belly. After all the honey were gone, Yu Wen would finish up the whole Buddha! Sometimes the big fat Buddha was not enough for her, she would ask for a Big Fat Pig.

Once at Tyan Chyau there was some happening shocked You Wen that she could never forget her whole life:

People were circled around a tall young man, his upper body was naked. He was ready to perform some very special Chinese Kung Fu-"gecko Kung Fu"-. Yu Wen saw that he cupping one hand in the other in front of his chest to salute the people around him, then he turn around facing the city wall with is back toward the crowd. Beginning with a few steps of quick running, that tall young man started running on the wall as if he was running on the ground until he almost reach the top of the city wall. Suddenly a armed soldier showed up and aimed him with his rifle. The young man turned his body around and jumped down to the ground as quickly as a flash. People applaud loudly and shouted with "GOOD!" A lots of money dropped into his rugged hat. It tells the performance was awesome!

      

There was one particular particular toy that Yu Wen wanted to play but never dare to try, it was called "Poo- Poo-Dern". It was made of very, very thin glass, shapped as a calabash. At the bottom of the calabash was especially thin. When you slightly and shortly blow some air into the tube at the other end, the bottom of the calabash moves which made the noise "Poo-Dern, Poo-Dern". It sounded cheerfully. Once Yu Wen saw a little boy was play with "Poo-Poo-Dern". He was blowing a little too hard the bottom part of the calabash popped into small pieces and shotted into all the directions. some pieces flew into the boy's face who was standing next to him. That hurted boy screamed out loudly and blooded all over his face. Wang Ma told Yu Wen: "Fortunately it only cut the boy's face not his eye and he was blowing. If he was inhaling the tiny pieces of broken glass could get into his through. That could be too late to sent him to the hospital. That is why there is nursery rhyme, which says:「Poo-Dern, Poo-Dern. Two pennies could cost you life. My lady should never play with it."