Chinese Spring Festival Fireworks(1)
Against the darkened sky Hong Kong welcomes in the Spring Festival and with it the Chinese New Year.
The Chinese are thought to have made the first fireworks some 2000 years ago when they packed saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal into bamboo tubes. The resultant explosion.was thought loud enough to drive away evil spirits and featured in births, deaths and funerals. Marco Polo was greatly impressed on his 13th Century travels through China and brought the powder back where it was soon converted by a German monk into gunpowder.
These and other details I learnt from the characteristically informative Discovery Channel program on fireworks. It also describes how modern science is harnessed to choreograph major fireworks displays. Aerial shells are launched into the air by with the aid of computer programs and electronic igniters overseen by skilled pyrotechnicians.
Under British colonial rule the use of fireworks in Hong Kong was strictly controlled and largely reserved for the Spring Festival display. On the Chinese mainland their use has also been restricted in the major cities. It is only in the last year that their unrestricted sale has been permitted in Shanghai and Beijing. I was in Shanghai for the 2006 Spring Festival and the intensity of the explosions steadily builds until midnight when the cacophony is incredible and cordite fumes oddly exhilarating. Indications are that this year it will, if anything, be even more intense.
