Things to Love about China: 18 of 100

Fireworks

When I was a child, I believed in fireworks. There is something wonderful and mysterious about a pyrotechnics display and throughout history people have associated fireworks with magic, rather than science.

As a kid I always thought fireworks were capable of more than they were. Have you ever seen a firework that took the shape of a heart when it exploded? (Or rather something that crudely represented a heart). Well, my misconception as a child was that people could build fireworks that took the form of shapes- not little things like hearts- but think when Gandalf makes a dragon at Bilbo’s birthday party. It’s not a horrible misconception as a child (as far as misconceptions go), but even as an adult, I have always believed that somewhere out there, there were fireworks that could take shapes.

I blame “Full House”, of course. Here’s why: In 1993 the Tanner Family on “Full House” went to Disney World and right after Uncle Jessie plays “A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes” on his guitar in front of thousands of fans, there is a scene where Danny proposes to his girlfriend during the fireworks display. In the sky, above Cinderella’s Castle, this firework explodes and spells out “Vicky, Will you marry me”. When you look back at it, it is an unbelievably bad animation, but at the time (when I was nine) I believed it.

I guess it was around the time that YouTube came out, that I finally convinced myself that nowhere in the world (not even Disney World) such firework technology is possible. Not even in China, the birthplace of the firework.

Over a thousand years ago the Chinese invented four great things: Papermaking, Printing, The Compass, and Gunpowder. The Chinese serendipitously invented gunpowder while searching for an eternal-life elixir and once they had gunpowder, fireworks were not far behind.

Here’s how it went down- A monk named Li Tian had the idea of placing the gunpowder into a stick of bamboo and throwing it into the fire. The result? BOOM! Fireworks originally were meant to chase away evil spirits, but it helped that they were loud and pretty (and people could shout “Oooooooooo!”)

Today, the Chinese are the biggest makers and exporter of fireworks, as well as the biggest users. Where the US has one fireworks holiday, the Chinese have at least five. Firework designers are often seen as artists as it is not a simple thing. Pyrotechnics are as much chemistry, as they are magic. Twenty-one different elements are used to create the different colors, sounds, and shapes.

I know now that (unless firework technology increases dramatically) I will never be able to spell phrases out to my loving fiancé or see a Smaug-shaped dragon-work fly over my head. But I did find this video on YouTube, which I think is really cool! Go you Chinese firework makers!