Chinese people like displaying fireworks very much.

They invented gunpowder for banboo cracker. It's a pity they didn't have science. Otherwise, Chinese people would invent fireworks a couple of thousand years ago.

This year, however, the noise and air pollution caused by fireworks dropped substantially, as I was told by my uncles. A taxidriver told me he would not display fireworks any more but instead, he would drive more in order to earn more money.

I thought the purpose of displaying fireworks was to scare the shit out of the demons and hopefully gods would give their blessings. On the other hand, Chinese people like "hot noise", which basically means that lots of people (friends and relatives) visit each other and as a result noise will be produced. Why? I have absolutely no idea, but I love it! Fireworks are hot and noisy, so people love them.

The point the taxidriver made was that people began to understand gods are powerless and unreliable and that the only way to achieve something is to believe ourselves. Although I totally agree with him, I still love fireworks, as they are hot noisy.

For those foreigners, as a precausion, you'd better not come to China at this time of the year, unless you want to have the feeling of being at a battle field. It was reported that in Beijing alone, there were several hundred million text messages sent on new year's eve. I can imagine there were billions of bombs displayed on that eve in China.

My uncle has bought some of those bombs. However, he returned these dynamites back to the shop owner as it is too dangerous to play with them as an amertur and there have been some counted deaths. Of course, I believe it is really easy to do some modifications to change these fireworks to weapons of mass destruction, well, according to Bush's definition.

I was imagining a world where every country had developed nuclear weapons and there was no effective defence system. Probably, the world would appear in equilibrium with no wars at all, as every governer is human being and by human nature they should be scared of death, which in turn should result in no offensive military orders. Right? Anyone who is no scared of death at all can never survive a political war or a physical war. This reminded me of the film "Assembly", which should be shown very soon in the UK. I just went to watch this movie in cinema this afternoon. War is crude and nobody wants to die, so if anyone can be killed by anyone else and there is no way to defend themselves to be killed, people are sensible enough not to start any stupid offensive attempts.

Sorry that I talked about shit again. Back to fireworks again. I believe there are other reasons behind the seemingly reduced noice and air pollution in Shanghai. Although I cannot name all, I can at least name one: the fast expansion of Shanghai. As more and more poor people moving  to the sububs, the number of poor people living in central Shanghai has reduced substaintially. Poor people tend to buy cheap fireworks, e.g. firecracker, which can cause more noise, though no optical attraction at all. On the other hand, more and more rich people buy flats and houses in central shanghai. Some of them let the flats out and the tenants have been very likely at home anywhere but shanghai. Others can afford huge fireworks, which can reach as high as hundreds of meters, but will not cause so much noise as firecrackers.

I haven't come home for new year for 5 years. To be honest, I think it was noisy enough.