Lunar New Year A Blast In China

Call it "shock and awe" with Chinese characteristics.

Shanghai, China's biggest city, kicked off the Lunar New Year on Wednesday with a traditional all-night fireworks barrage, thrilling young and old with hours of thunderous bangs, mighty booms and blooms of colored light.

Bottle rockets soared into the sky, charges blasted through the suburbs and bundles of firecrackers detonated in buckets placed in the street, their containers seemingly amplifying the sound.

"It's just unbelievably loud and it goes on all night," said convenience store clerk Liu Yuhua. "No one can sleep, not even with ear plugs in," she said, turning aside with a shrug of resigned exasperation.

Considered a must for driving out evil spirits and celebrating special occasions, firecrackers have for centuries been a hallmark of Lunar New Year celebrations in China. As the clock moved toward midnight Wednesday, earsplitting barrages resounded in China's cities and Asian communities from the United States to Europe, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

"No fireworks, no new year atmosphere," said a Shanghai security guard, who gave his surname Fang, carrying a bundle of rockets through a narrow alley in one of the city's old neighborhoods of brick courtyard houses known as shikumen.

Not everyone's a fan, though.

China's capital Beijing has thrown cold water on the custom, banning fireworks as a public nuisance and fire hazard. Despite police patrols meant to net violators, the ban is routinely ignored.

Most of the rest of China continues to unabashedly revel in the cacophony. Shanghai's spontaneous displays are among the most impressive anywhere.

This year, the bangs began early in the evening while city workers are still rushing home for the traditional New Year's Eve dinner and marathon mahjong sessions. Random cracks and bangs echoed through the canyons of skyscrapers and across construction sites.

By nightfall, sidewalks were littered with red paper wrappings from exploded firecrackers and clouds of gunpowder smoke trailed over shops and houses. After a pause for supper, the blasts resumed, lighting up the sky in flashes and shaking windows in buildings a dozen or more stories in the air.

"It's just something we all like to do. I even have to buy my little boy fireworks and he's just 3 years old," said a woman, who identified herself as Ms. Shen, watching neighbors light fuses on a sidewalk in the city's old French concession neighborhood.

By Christopher Bodeen