Come and look at this guy, she shouted above the din. I pushed my way over to where a vendor was creating animals out of sugar, using a glass-blowing technique. He sat seemingly unperturbed warming up the toffee, then taking a small lump, he blew, pulled and tweaked until it magically resembled a bull. People were snapping them up as fast as he could make them.

I finished my porridge just as an excited fellow wearing a pink wig and waving one of those ubiquitous multicolored windmills tried to sell me a face mask--perhaps he thought I needed a change of face.

I stretched my hand high up above the hordes and snapped pictures. Somehow the wave had moved us to what looked like a planet made entirely of soft toys. Teddy bears, pandas, oxen and even crocodiles. Some were strung from beams by their necks, causing a crying fit from a small girl near me who thought the toys were being punished.

I tried my hand at one of the traditional games throwing a small hoop over protruding tubes. The attendant had shown me the hoop did in fact fit over. Having long arms, I was able to stretch across and almost drop the hoops over the tubes. The attendants exchanged glances, went into a huddle, debated, then nodded and handed over one of the large bears that had previously hung on the gallows. Shouts of "hao, hao!" went up from the crowd.

Around me the park hung thick with red lanterns, and I needed to step back and find a place of refuge. A small clearing seemed to offer some escape, but just then a troupe of carriers dressed in red outfits danced past, an ancient sedan chair on their shoulders. Perched on the chair a happy child laughed her head off, while mom ran alongside trying to take as many pictures as was humanly possible.

There was no getting away from the action. Li was calling again. "Come on," she said, "this is not the time to relax."

I guessed it wasn't, and dived back into the fray.

The author is South African and lives in Beijing