(Beijing Weekend)
Updated: 2008-02-11 09:12

A boy sets off fireworks to celebrate the Lantern Festival, on the 15th day of last year's Lunar New Year, like many other youngsters across the country. Cao Jiansong

Ask any Chinese what they like about celebrating Spring Festival, and chances are most will say there is nothing quite like starting off the Lunar New Year with a bang.

Adults still find it hard to resist, elders remain mesmerized and young ones, of course, squeal with delight at the chance.

Children will always look forward to that time of the year when they can hold in their hands the red-paper wrapped firecrackers - the power to herald the new year and shake up the neighborhood.

Others might simply wait, watch and cover their ears as they revel in a boisterous occasion befitting the most important time of the year.

Most adults and seniors too, would have fond memories of the treat, when they had to hide behind grown-ups before the blasts, or sit and even stand on shoulders to take in the myriad of colors from firecrackers that made it up into the night sky.

Firecrackers evoke emotions and meanings too many to fully mention - a big family spending time together, the reaffirming of bonds, the marking of one year to the next, and pure exhilaration.

The setting off of firecrackers during Spring Festival where family members reconnect at reunions - an occasion much like Christmas Eve in the West - is a celebration of culture and one that the Chinese can trace back to 2000 BC.

Like any myth, explanations abound for such an association.

But all of them have to do with nian, a monster that could swallow an entire village of people at one go.

Stories of nian's terrifying feats and humankind's efforts to battle it - mostly told on the eve of the new year - also vary.

One popular version entails a wise old man passing on the knowledge that nian feared loud noise and the color red.

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