New Year's 2011

New Year's in Lhasa, well Western New Year's in Lhasa that is. Funny enough New Year's here in Lhasa was like many New Year's Eves of the past. Friends got together had some beverages (various kinds but Lhasa Beer and Bacardi Breezier were the alcohol of choice that night). With drinking of course dictated going out for dancing, which in Lhasa meant another trip to Queen (or Baliba in Chinese). This time around we were all seasoned pros with knowledge of the drink selection, dance floor and location of the restrooms (isn't that all you need to know?). As to our usual nocturnal exploits we all dressed accordingly but this time with a bit of extra flair since it was New Year's. I donned my fancy classes and a black fitted dress shirt. I also did some facial hair trimming which gave me a sort of hipster Hawaii 50 look. My French friend wore this shirt our other friends gave him which said (and I'm not kidding), "Keep your shirt on." This shirt was a present from a past dorm party where certain obvious shenanigans transpired. Looking good we entered the club to the same mix of muted Beyonce and 50 cent videos and strange Chinese and Euro pop. This night proved to be our wildest at Queen yet as the dance floor was already packed upon our arrival (usually no one is dancing when we arrive). Stranger still another 6 foot 5 inch westerner showed up with one of the American English teachers. I think it was strange for all of us, but especially for my 6 foot 5 friend from Germany who finally got to see another person eye to eye. The two Americans informed us that we missed fireworks celebrating the Western New Year and we all felt happily surprised that China cared about our calendar so much. But strangely why would they? Both Chinese and Tibetan New Years are on different days than Western New Year (both also change year to year, which is possibly why Western New Year's is confusing for many of the Tibetans I spoke with). This year, Chinese New Year is on Feb 1th and Tibetan New Year on March 5th.The fact that fireworks (and big ones too) were set off in our honor so far away from home, made us kind of feel in a way more at home. Dancing the night away also helped us feel at home too. It's the little things, you know? Well as the night progress, various (tra mi tra) of us were invited for a drink by different groups of people. I was called over to a table full of Chinese young women and offered food/ drinks but strangely I left without having either. These same women would woo one of my friends over and drop a kiss on him. Yes it seemed to be that kind of night where people were much more outside of their skins, dancing, socializing, and drinking more freely than usual. And when things are happening more freely than usual here (whether politically or socially) one takes not of it. As the night progressed the usual DJ singing Chinese pop performance occurred and we were graced by the video game reenactment by the bartender once again. It was time to go home when one person in our group was upset about the Chinese girl kissing incident and a third member of the group exclaimed "This is the best New Year's Eve ever" followed by "I never want to leave Lhasa." Because well, it really wasn't the best New Year's ever, good but not "best ever" and we all want to go home home at some point. Reality began to either be too real or skew a bit too much, so it was time for a return to campus.When we finally convinced the "king of the world" friend to come home with us we pilled into cabs and we all got home safe. Needless to say, when we got home most people went to sleep after a long night of New Year's fun but I heard others continued their celebration into the wee (or wee-er) hours.