鞭炮 (literally 'whip-cannon') or firecrackers are traditionally used at Chinese New Year to scare away evil spirits, but they scare the 地狱 out of me too. 'Cracker' is a bit of a misnomer, with the larger, more powerful varieties packing a concussive blast that is as much felt as heard. Every time one goes off, I suffer an involuntary ducking/flinching motion, and reveal myself to the Chinese world as the outsider that I am. They've been going off with a particular enthusiasm tonight, and I'm not sure if it's a special day, or a case of using up stocks before the festival ends in a week's time.
Kids can be seen in giggly crowds around the street corners where hawkers sell their fireworks. They spend their pocket money on a few kuai's worth of explosive ordinance at a time, hurrying back after each pop to try something newer, louder, whizzier.
As I trod the local streets, once again looking for somewhere new for dinner, a girl stood up from where she was crouched at the curb, and ran at me, shrieking and covering her ears. I froze stiffer than an Englishman's upper lip in the popular imagination of a Chinese school child raised on Jane Austen novels and Hugh Grant movies, before scurrying for cover. The explosion never came, and shockingly the girl returned to pick up her firework after a few seconds, and squinted down the end of the tube expectantly.
Later, I stood watching a group of two middle-aged couples as they detonated a pile of crackers larger than the most well-fed of London's street urchins (in the popular imagination of Chinese school children raised reading Dickens). After a percussive eternity the pik-pak pik-pak died away, only to be replaced by an annoying ringing in my ears, and the wee-woo of alarms from several cars and a van, distressed by the clamour. In the still winter air, the smoke lingered close to the ground, smelling like a thousand burnt matches.
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