Citizens of a Jiangsu city were recently treated to an entirely-unexpected and completely-free-of-charge fireworks show. And that was the result of thousands of illegal fireworks being soaked in petrol and a match being lit.
Petrol, known to our American friends as gasoline, or simply gas, should somewhat obviously never normally come into contact with fireworks. “Never the twain shall meet”, as Rudyard Kipling famously wrote.
And that’s what was so eyebrow raising about the manner in which the disposal of fake fireworks and firecrackers was approached in the city of Yancheng on the coast of our very own Jiangsu Province.
On 23 September, police in northeastern Sheyang County of Yancheng headed up the effort to destroy all the fake fireworks and firecrackers they had captured within their jurisdiction so far this year.
Reporters for The Paper interviewed officer Geng Qichun (耿其春) of the Jiangsu Sheyang Public Security Bureau (江苏射阳县公安局) standing in front of literally hundreds of large boxes of illegal fireworks. Somewhat unbelievably, the police had come across them illegally stored in a residential area.
At around 16:00 on Friday, on open ground along Sheyang’s coastal beach, stevedores unloaded the fireworks and firecrackers, piling them into a deep ditch, after which police officers soaked them in petrol.
Then the torch was lit and the sky above became ablaze with a firework show that would impress anyone.
All in, more than 9,000 pieces of illegal fireworks and firecrackers had been destroyed by around 18:00.
China’s near obsession with fireworks for use on auspicious dates means the country has a near-continuous problem with fakes. As The Nanjinger reported at the time, ahead of Chinese New Year last year, authorities in Nanjing even took the step of offering members of the public rewards for reporting the illegal use or sale of fireworks or firecrackers.
