Kathy & Paul's Adventures Abroad

We arrived in Beijing too late for the Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) on February 14, which is the start of the Spring Festival. It is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays.

The origin of the Lunar New Year can be traced back thousands of years involving a series of colourful legends and traditions. One of the most famous legends is of Nian, an extremely cruel and ferocious beast. The ancients believed he would devour people on New Year’s Eve. To keep Nian away red paper couplets are pasted to the door, torches are lit and firecrackers are set off throughout the night. Nian is said to fear the colour red, the light of the fire, and loud noises. Early the next morning after successfully keeping Nian away for another year the most popular expression heard is “Gong xi fa cai” or congratulations.

Last night was the final day of the Spring Festival, the fifteenth day, known as the Lantern Festival. We have been back in China six days and there have been random fireworks every day. We were told that the Lantern Festival rivals New Years for fireworks but nothing could prepare us for last night. You should know this is not a government sponsored event. It is the average person who buys and sets off fireworks. A city of seventeen million people setting off fireworks is hard to believe and harder to describe.

It started around dusk and ended six hours later around midnight – continuous, massive, unbelievable – they were everywhere.You could look in any direction and there was a light show.

The view from our tenth floor window was amazing! The fireworks sound like popcorn popping – deafening popcorn! Looking down at the street outside our apartment we saw a family of four with their car trunk full of fireworks. Dad was setting them off while Mom and the kids watched. One hundred meters up the road four young men in a white van were setting off large bottle rockets. When it explodes a bottle rocket sends a shower of colour down from the sky. At the same time we could see three or four people setting off five feet long strings of firecrackers.

Block by block all over the city this was happening. It is something everyone should experience at least once. It is hard to describe how beautiful it was but I will make an attempt and say it was like Canada Day fireworks multiplied by 10000!