I’m such a bad American.

Somehow or another, I completely forgot about the Fourth of July. I probably would have forgotten about it all together had I not hopped on the computer at out hotel/hostel in Yangshuo to email my folks back home. After quickly composing the “I’m fine and it’s beautiful here” email to them, I scanned through the ones that I had received since leaving Xiamen on the first of July. Strangely, this was the first and only time in the span of six days that I surfed the world wide web. I think it’s a personal best, really, considering my awful addiction to the the great WWW. I guess Yangshuo kept me pretty busy because I didn’t really think much of it until I got back to Xiamen this afternoon. I’ve more or less been on my computer ever since. Heh. 🙂

So yeah, the whole idea that the Fourth of the July had actually come and gone a whole day earlier didn’t even register until I read these words at the bottom of my Dad’s email. “Hoping you have a safe and patriotic Independence Day!” I had to stop and think about what it said for a second.

“Independence Day?” I thought to myself. “The Fourth of July?” I looked down at the date on my watch. A little 5 stared back at me. “Is it really the fifth of July?” I then looked at the date on the right hand corner of the computer. “Holy crap, it is the fifth!”

I guess the lack of American flags, firework stands and constant TV ads to remind me made me completely forget that it was that time of year. That is how it is for most holidays here in China. Unless it’s Christmas, all the other holidays you grew up celebrating sort of fade into the background. To keep the traditions going in this home so far away from home, I have to try my best to remember when the holidays are even if I am not surrounded by all the decorations and other hoopla related to them. Lucky for me, I’m in China, the land that invented fireworks. If I really want to, I can go down and buy a warehouse full of fireworks and celebrate with all the hoopla I want until I am blue in the face. And since I can do that, I think I just might.

Who cares if it is a few days late. It’s the thought that counts.
I’ll start posting my 4.2 GB of pictures tomorrow that I collected on my trip to Yangshuo, but for now I am going to bed.