This 10 in Ten is a combination of date stamping, runs, and Chinese holidays, inspired by our review of Big Trouble in Little China. If your city setting has a Chinatown (or LittleTokyo, etc.), then involve your players in its calendar. The food, the sights, the smells, the fireworks, the Shadowruns… If ol’ Jack Burton can stumble into a millenia-old struggle for the soul of the world, you can expect your players to find some work, as long as they don’t get on the wrong side of the locals, or the Triads.
A note on dates: Chinese holidays are usually celebrated on the lunar calendar, and follow a “second day of the second month” model. That is, a holiday will fall on the second day of the second lunar month. For non-Chinese or non-AAPI, this means the holidays do not fall on the same time each year, and can vary from year to year by weeks. Mr. Black recommends using a good calendar app, that includes Chinese holidays, and using the current year (say 2021) as the year in game. So replace 2080’s calendar with 2021’s. Let the app keep track of the holidays, and give you alerts that you can tailor to your players.
If your location doesn’t have a Chinatown, or you just prefer a different ethnic/regional group, most Asian cultures share many of these holidays. Many celebrate them differently, and often on different days (make use of that calendar app again!) But the concept is the same. 10 holidays, 10 different times of year, at least 10 more runs to undertake…
(Please note, Mr. Black is definitely a gwáilóu. Mr. Black is attempting to use Chinese customs and holidays to add depth and excitement to a game, and intends no disrespect or insult to the Chinese people, Chinese-Americans, or any people who share Asian heritage and/or culture.)
Lunar New Year, Start of Celebration-the Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, is the first major holiday of the year. This year there is competition for the Lion Dancers team. This is a major boon. The chosen team will perform not only throughout the Spring Festival, but also at many other holiday celebrations, and may get to travel and represent Seattle throughout the world. The prestige within the community, the extra pay for the performers, and most importantly, the guanxi and miànzi gained for the team sponsor, elevate this from a single “Bring It On” event into something much grander. For a small nimble Crew this could play out as a less lethal version of A Fist Full of Yuan, or a series of runs disrupting costume storage, painting the lions inappropriate colors, etc. Both teams want to win, but neither wants the other team dead or crippled. After all, beating them again next year just proves the miànzi was properly earned, and, “Lion Dancer team brutally murdered in Hing Hay Park” does not bring the tourists in. The dance team supported by Mama Chiang’s Golden Palace restaurant (or their competitors, Mr. Li’s Market, you choose, your game!) may not pay the best, but the Longevity Noodles are divine, and the good luck is palatable. And who doesn’t need some extra luck, and a new contact in the new year?
Someone is about to get blown up big time.. Lunar New Year, End of Celebration, the Lantern Festival. Traditionally, this marks the end of the Spring Festival. The Lantern Festival makes a great Meet for a cunning Mr. Johnson, as the lanterns often have riddles on them. Solving the riddle may be a proof of competency, or lead to a second quieter meeting place. This is also a good way for the dance team that lost the above competition to contact the Crew, and use them to get some revenge on the winners…
So many lanterns, so little time... Zhonghe, the Blue Dragon Festival. The festival venerates the Dragon God*, but is also a spring planting festival. It is considered a good time to get a haircut. Perhaps a hacker is needed to put a name in the appointment app for Zhao’s, the most auspicious barber shop and ladies salon in Chinatown. Or Mr. Li hires them again, this time to sabotage Mama Chiang’s zongzi, or sticky rice dumplings.
Zongzi, sort of a Chinese pork tamale. Qingming, Tomb Sweeping festival. This festival is more solemn than most, but given the distance in both time, space and generations from the homeland (and Seattle Chinatown’s lack of space for tombs/graves,) Qingming has turned into more of a family reunion picnic type of thing. Families gather in the International Distrinct’s parks, and pay respect to their departed family elders. There is feasting, burning of joss paper, and the carrying and pacing of pomegranate and willow branches, But the big draw is kite flying.the creation of kites, selling of kites and flying them has grown into a huge festival in Seattle. While there is no kite flying competition, there is some minor jostling, and much miànzi can be won or lost, especially if a team loses their kite, say to having their kite string cut...
These kites get kinda big and scary... Duanwu Festival, or the Dragon Boat races. June. Dragon Boat Races present lots of options for runs. Lots of money from gambling is on the offer, and prestige for winners makes this one of most exciting days for shadowrunners in Seattle. Whether rigging boats to increase drag, influencing boat crews to throw a race, sabotaging boats, providing security against the above before races, providing security during races (water spirits can get quite feisty on Lake Washington during the holiday), and acting as bagmen after races, runners can make a lot of nuyen. And activity during the races have only increased since Salish tribal teams in West Coast Canoes were invited to take part. Team Raven or Team Dragon? You take your pick, and live with the consequences…
Raven Boats... 
...or Dragon Boats, take your pick.. Qixi, or the so-called “Chinese Valentine's Day”. August. This is more a celebration of couples, and less of Western Romantic love. But it does involve magpies bridging the Milky Way, and thus Magpie shamans (or in a mixing of Northwestern cultures, NAN Raven/Magpie Shamans), special treats, qiao guo candies. There are also contests for young ladies, testing old-fashioned domestic tasks, such as threading needles in low light conditions. This sounds out of place, sexist and pretty useless, but in Chinatown of 2080, the winners acquire miànzi they can then use through guanxi to earn money to start businesses or help with college tuition. It replaces a beauty pageant in a way. And where there is a contest, there is room for the Crew to work their magic...
Conflict and candy!!! Ghost Festival. This festival is famous for burning joss paper, the act of setting food out for departed loved ones, and placing festival lamps out upon the waters. This time Mama Chiang hires the Crew to replace Mr. Li’s joss paper with something offensive, and Mr. Li hires them to replace the vegetarian offering food with meat. The entire festival is a perfect time to harvest spirit summoning reagents, as the heart of the celebration is the opening of the “underworld”. And all this doesn’t involve “Hell Bank Notes”, or Hell Money. Could a savvy Crew sabotage a Triad’s economic base by subbing in their bearer bonds for Hell money, and laughing as the Triad’s members burn the bonds? And could a Crew be hired to help/hinder the summoning of a massive spirit on the day the spirits are released from Hell?
For burning, not for earning! Mid-Autumn Festival, Moon Festival. Seattle does this big! More dance teams, lantern contests, food booths and food trucks (Mr. Black’s favorite form of surveillance!) make this another chance to lose or gain both guanxi and miànzi. From Triad protection scams, to “enforced” food shortages, to ultra-rare ingredient gathering (can the Crew gather 4 Broobie or Lesser Roc eggs, for the most decadent and expensive Mooncake ever?), there is lots for a Crew to do, or more likely get entangled in.
Mooncake. ChongYang Festival, Double Nine Festival. This October festival follows the traditions of many Chinese holidays, the reverence of ancestors, the drinking of a particular tea/wine (chrysanthemum in this case), the eating/gifting of a dense “cake”, and monster fighting and hill climbing. Wait, what are those last two? Yes, traditionally a hero told his village to climb a hill for safety while he fought a monster. So replace lion dancers with a monster killing parade, and lots of hill climbing contests, both actual (dirt bikes and foot races up East Roy Street on Capitol Hill are sponsored events) and AR (Sonia Danzig’s Emerald Free Climb Challenge 2078 it still widely played, and has 2 special Chongyang climbs in the International District. This year, the Space Needle is chiming in with an AR climb up the needle, complete with “monster attacks”, and a special menu with top chef Peter Yuen flown in from Hong Kong.) Can the Crew help Mister Li or Mama Chiang win? And what of the rumors of an underground wrestling gambling ring? Is the street sam ready to strip down, grease up, and partake in the nastiest one-day fight club that doesn’t permit kicks or strikes this side of the Pacific? Is the mage ready to gather all those “double yang”, doubly lucky reagents?
Seattle’s most popular AR climbing game! Dongzhi Winter Solstice Festival. This is celebrated on the actual solstice. Getting together with family, and eating rice ball soup, dumplings, and/or hot pot (depending on where one's family is from, and how strict their traditions are.) After the ceremonies, the “year” is now older, making this an auspicious time for reagent gathering, spirit summoning, spirit releasing/banishing, and debt paying. Any and all of these fall within the Crew’s remit, making this a challenging and enriching holiday. As is gifting your Chinatown patron/Mr. Johnson an appropriate gift. And said gift had better be very appropriate, or the loss of miànzi could be catastrophic in the upcoming year...
Kicking it Chinese style!
And just think, in a few months, it all starts again. There is a lot of adventure, fun, and runs to execute in just 3 blocks! With 10 holidays, and each having multiple runs for a good group with the right contacts, a GM could do an entire year's worth of runs. And by expanding their guanxi, and the careful management of their patrons miànzi, they could become virtually the Guardians of Chinatown…
*Dragon Gods brings up images of both the Sea Dragon, and Lung, Patron Dragon of China and the Rim of Fire. Do you dare run a game where the Crew, after eating zongzi, slowly transform into drakes? What has Mama Chiang gotten them into?
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