Imagethief

Gallery here, or click on any of the thumbnails.

Last Sunday was Yuanxiaojie, the sweet-dumping eating festival, which marks the end of the traditional two-week observance of Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). In Beijing, after a ban lasting several years, fireworks were once again legal within city limits. Last year, although the ban was still in effect, fireworks were still visible all across the town, and for  two or three days at the beginning of the Spring Festival the city echoed with the constant, rolling boom of detonations large and small.

If last year was a thrill, this year was incendiary bedlam. I grew up in the United States of America, where Independence Day, the fourth of July, is the holiday traditionally given over to fireworks. In those days, fireworks were illegal in San Francisco, but for weeks prior to the holiday you could drive ten minutes down to Daily City and buy fountains, sparklers, Piccolo Petes and the awe-inspiring Roman Candle. Firecrackers were illegal, but easily available out of the boots of cars in San Francisco's China town, coming in "bricks" of about thirty small packets of thirty firecrackers each. The individual packets were wound with a common fuse, so if you didn't mind blowing your budget all at once, you could ignite the lot in an orgy of pyromaniacal bliss. I set off several firecrackers in my hands and face in those days, and its a good thing nothing more potent was readily available.

The fireworks available in China --the country which, as we are constantly reminded, invented fireworks-- are nothing short of awe-inspiring, and they make the humble firecrackers and fountains of my youth seem petty and impoverished by comparison. In China you can easily purchase a breathtaking array of mortars, bombs, rockets and fountains of a size that would make even a hardened pyromaniac consider what a rationally safe distance might be. The largest are trash-can sized boxes of mortars packed together, many of which are capable of discharging twenty or more colossal starbursts into the air and triggering every car alarm for blocks around.

On Sunday evening, as the sun set the booms started. By nine PM, the city was awash in a nonstop din of pops, booms, whistles and swooshes, and a low smoky pall began to settle under the normal pollution. In the plaza in front of my apartment block is a wide, flat, tiled expanse that had been barricaded especially for the purpose of setting off fireworks. The security guards were helping people to set up and light an assortment of rockets and deafening noisemakers. Entire families were out, and small children catapulted around with sparklers, leaving trails of smoke and embers behind them. Fathers rolled out strings of firecrackers ten meters long that, when lit, created walking blossoms of flame that emitted uninterrupted, explosive shockwaves for a minute or longer, leaving ears stinging and the tile scarred by long, black streaks.

My apartment block is next to small neighborhood of older, local apartment blocks, dingy, low walkups and tiny, dimly lit storefronts. If the display on the tiled plaza had been intense, that going on in the warren of alleys and courtyards next door was complete sensory overload. With no room to dissipate, the noise rang between brick walls, setting off car alarms and rattling windows. Smoke settled in the narrow confines, making the eyes water but carrying with it an unmistakable tang of fireworks; the powerful smell of nostalgia for holidays past. Exploding skyrockets illuminated the drab, concrete buildings in temporary pastels of green, fuschia and purple. Any lurking spirits were surely banished.

It was a beautiful moment in Beijing; a scene that could never be duplicated in the litigious United States, or in buttoned-down Singapore where it was recently front-page news when the Prime Minister lit a single string of firecrackers. Lurking in the back of my head was an American's sense of admonition; be careful. Protect your eyes. Watch your clothing. But watching the faces of the children, and of everybody else, the overriding feeling was one of wonder and fun. Even the two policemen dragged into the old neighborhood by a Chinese news photographer who wanted a picture of them watching the display, seemed to be enjoying the moment.

I spent a couple of hours wandering the alleys and watching the plaza in front of my building. I've posted eleven of the many photographs I took. Most are long, handheld exposures, so they tend to be a little blurry. But they capture the hazy, indistinct feel of a neighboorhood shrouded in smoke and brief flashes of light. Follow the link above.

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