I think we all love fireworks. There’s an old song that goes: “Skyrockets at night, afternoon delight…..”

If there was mention of a fireworks display somewhere near me for some festive occasion when I was in Australia l would make the effort to go and see it. If you couldn’t get to the place you would try to watch it on TV – not quite the same but nevertheless sort of exciting. Australia Day in Perth, New Year’s Day at Sydney Harbour and a host of other smaller festivals are celebrated and they deserved a few thousand dollars worth of fireworks to watch and to take the family, have a picnic and a few quiet beers.

Then, I moved to China. There were fireworks going off everywhere on numerous occasions, in the daytime and the nighttime. Unlike what I was used to back home and in other Western Countries where their use is controlled the fireworks here were not choreographies of music and light. Chinese fireworks are let off by simply lighting the fuse and listening to the bangs, whistles and zoom of rockets for the reason of some celebration or festival. I was initially enthralled by all this. I would lean out my window and take it all in. The ear splitting noise created by crackers going off in confined courtyards, the skyrockets blasting past your window and that distinct smell of gunpowder wafting on the breeze was an amazing experience. I would madly search the internet to find what particular festival was being celebrated. This euphoria lasted about 6 months.

Last night, well actually, starting the evening before at the wonderful hour of 11.30pm when some halfwit lit a line of crackers outside the building scaring the bejeezuz out of sleeping residents, there was a celebration of an unknown event that caused the world around me to explode into something that sounded like an invasion of Daqing! I was totally unaware of any special festival and this must have been important because the amount of fireworks going off was almost as good (or bad) as Chinese New Year.

Before I get too worked up let me cover the usual events that result in the Chinese custom of a fireworks display.

1. Chinese New Year. This is normal in countries other than China for their New Years as well and if you don’t like the sound of constant fireworks for about 24 hours I suggest you take a holiday outside of the country (which I do these days). Cracker Cacophony at it’s very best!
2. Spring Festival. This is the major holiday in China and I think last year Chinese New Year fell in that same period. This festival is a serious fireworks period and the bangs and rockets will be in your face for at least a 10 day period but allow 2 weeks as the smell of gunpowder covers the country. The sale of fireworks is a big business here and the total lack of safety in the way roadside vendors ply their trade has to be seen to be believed. It’s a common enough sight to see individuals selling fireworks from the sidewalks of main roads in almost never ending lines. Scary, considering the habit of drivers tossing still-lit cigarettes from car windows and vendors themselves smoking while bargaining deals!
3. Lantern Festival which is usually the last day of Spring Festival.
4. Dragon Boat Festival – there are a couple of variations to a wonderful traditional story for this festival, reason enough to light a fuse.
5. Tomb Sweeping Day (QingMing) – another great traditional story from China’s ancient history for this festival. Fireworks are not all that common but the people make up for it with the burning of paper money which is done on the side of the road, sidewalks, middle of the road, courtyards and parks. Localized pollution at its best!
6. Weddings – there are sets of fireworks let off outside the bride’s home as she emerges to take the ride to the restaurant then again at the arranged venue as she arrives for the ceremony. The amount of fireworks can vary from 100 bangs to over 2000 and this latter amount is usually hung from a crane that is hired specifically for that job. Yes, crane hire is cheap in China.
7. New business openings – the customary blow- up inflated archway (red) with golden dragons is placed in the front of the restaurant or business so that everybody knows this is a new venture for the owners. Fireworks can vary from a couple of hundred bangers lit outside to a line of artillery cannons specially brought in and from which fireworks and streamers are shot into the air. Quite impressive!
8. Mid Autumn and Summer Solstice – usually get some fireworks intermittently let off in some areas. Mid Autumn is actually a national hoiliday.
9. Chongyang Festival – the 9^th day of the 9^th Lunar month. There is a devil involved here and I believe people try to get rid of the devil the month before, so that would be August. The ridding of the devil is, like Tomb Sweeping Day, accompanied by lots of paper burning on roadsides and of course, fireworks.
10. National Day – 5 days of public holidays here and why not thank the government with some fireworks?
11. Annoying Days -  I made this one up to cover for the inexplicable bangs of fireworks that disturb the early morning (I’m talking 5am here) or the late night (anything past 10.30pm) for no reason other than a bit of mischief perpetrated by somebody who probably had fireworks left over from one of the above festivals. I might add though, that you can buy fireworks anytime and from a whole range of different corner stores.

China is a big country and in the population there exists about 55 ethnic minorities all of whom have a range of their own festivals. There is, unbelievably, 1700 minor festivals in China and about 1200 of them belong to the ethnic minorities. Festivals such as the Water Splashing Festival by the Dai people, the Torch Festival for the Yi, Bai and Naxi minority group and the Knife Pole Festival for the Lisu, to mention just a few, can make visiting this country somewhat fascinating if attending festivals is your thing.

So you can see that with fireworks being one of the main ways to celebrate a festival that controlling the manufacture and sale would present the government with a major headache. I don’t have any figures of injuries caused by fireworks annually but I am guessing that with the evident lack of controls in place currently it would be high – not surprising. I do know that in the USA the fireworks business is worth more than $900million annually and in that country, where there are some controls, there were 9600 injuries in 2011. You can use your imagination for the possible related statistics here in China.

Getting back to last night (August 28^th)………. after hounding a number of people on QQ trying to find a reason for the fireworks and getting some pretty stupid answers from locals who really didn’t have a clue themselves it was finally decided that the festival was the Wealth Fairy. In my 3 years here I have never heard of that one and I am still searching the internet for some answers. In the meantime I am off to buy some Moon Cakes to eat with a cup of coffee. Moon Cakes? That’s another festival I will tell you about at another time. I might add that there are some aspects of some festivals that I really enjoy.

By the way, in the future should anyone back home feel inclined to invite me to a fireworks display for whatever reason – don’t bother! Enough is enough!