Fireworks!
So that’s when they do fireworks! I was surprised to rarely hear or see fireworks when I got here to China. Well, this week has been a little different. There have been fireworks every night for a week, and even interspersed during the daylight hours occasionally too.Having not been here in China for the New Year period last year, I didn’t realize they shot off fireworks so frequently during this Lunar Festival. Every night there have been fireworks shows just out my apartment window. I have seen at least four different locations shooting fireworks.
And as I mentioned last week, the fireworks shows are not particularly well organized, but they are pretty good fireworks. There will be blasts of fireworks for a good five minutes from a location, and then it will be quiet for an hour, and then the same locale will blast off again for another five minutes. While almost within shouting distance, another show will be doing the same thing on other times. These are not the massive shows of Hong Kong or Shanghai, but more just neighborhoods or neighbors that get together to celebrate the week.
The Chinese are famous, of course, for developing fireworks. They have long used the fireworks at this festival to scare off evil spirits. The loud blasts and red paper that wraps the firecrackers is, by legend, felt to chase away the spirits.
As I arrived back to work yesterday, I was astonished to find four large mounds of shredded red paper at the entryway. I had missed our company fireworks show, but I sure was seeing the aftermath. That must have been one heck of a show to have made the piles of paper left here in the street!
posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 11:39 AM
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