Appeasing the kitchen gods

A week before the Chinese New Year some Chinese participate in the "Appeasing of the Kitchen god." According to Grace Young, the author of The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen,
the tradition is to make offerings to the kitchen god as a sort of bribe.
"The kitchen god is a domestic god that resides behind the stove and he watches over everything in your home," Young tells NPR's Melissa Block. "And the Chinese believe that the heart of the family resides in the kitchen. … The family always puts a food offering in front of this little altar that they have right by the stove." The idea is that when the kitchen god goes up to see the jade emperor, his report will be favorable and you'll have a prosperous new year, Young says.

A friend here told us that they also shoot off fireworks as an appeasement to the kitchen gods. This video is of fireworks a few blocks from our apartment building. Marilyn, Gentry and I were watching them being shot off in several different directions. We could not get a clear view of them so we bundled up and started walking around.

The funny thing is that when we were out of sight of our courtyard, someone shot off some big ones there. We headed back in time to see some more neighbors getting ready to shoot some themselves. You can buy some serious fireworks here. As you can see in the video below, the fireworks are Fourth of July finale quality. I took the video from mine and Mare's bedroom window.

~ Brad