Lighting Lanterns

The Freshman finished their military training this week.  For celebration, there was a big event last night with games, a band, different clubs presenting, and tons of lanterns.  We could hardly finished talking to one person before the next person was asking us questions.  All the foreign teachers had about 7 people crowded around them for most of the time and then a new group would come over and ask you questions.  The all ask, where are you from?, do you speak chinese? how long have you been here and how long will you be here?, and a lot of the say, 'this is my first time talking to a foreigner.'  It was pretty interesting, and they said you would feel like a celebrity here and that was definitely something of the sort.  At the event, the students were lighting off tons of lanters, kind of like miniature hot air balloons into the sky.  It is really beautiful and peaceful to look up and see a bunch of lanterns floating up into the night sky.  They are about 3 feet high and 2 feet wide and come in a variety of bright colors.  At the bottom is something that looks like soap that you light and it stays lit for a long time.  One of the ones we lit when into a tree and got stuck under a branch, which was hilarious, and then it came back down and an older Chinese man put lighter fluid on it and re-lit it and off it went.  It was cool.