Firecrackers

The legend of Nian

The story most often told about firecrackers is younger than the crackers. In the legend as Britannica gives it, a monster called Nian (“Year”) attacked villagers at the beginning of each new year, and because it was afraid of loud noises, bright lights and the colour red, those things were used to chase it away. In the version the Library of Congress tells, an old man frightened the monster off by wearing red and setting off firecrackers. The magazine The World of Chinese tells of a beggar who stayed behind while the village fled, and left the house of the old woman who had fed him dumplings papered with red, with a few firecrackers still going off in the yard. The same magazine points out that no ancient records of folk custom or mythology mention the beast, and that its legend seems to have been handed down by word of mouth; the character 年 itself, in China’s first dictionary, means “the ripening of grain.” The creature the old texts name is the mountain shansao that the Jingchu suishi ji’s crackers were meant to scare.

Bans and their easing

Many cities restrict firecrackers today. After 446 people were injured by fireworks in Beijing over a single Spring Festival in 1986, the city put the first restrictions in place that year, Sixth Tone reported; Shanghai banned their sale and use in the city centre in 1988, and Beijing did the same in 1993. In 2005 Beijing gave way, and china.org.cn reported that December that firecrackers would be allowed in the city on the eve and first day of the coming New Year, and from 7 am to midnight until the 15th day of the first month. The argument has gone on since. In December 2024 Shunde district in Foshan, Guangdong, announced that residents could set off fireworks and firecrackers at set times through the 2025 festivals, while Guangzhou still forbids them in eight urban districts, China Daily reported; in December 2025 Shanxi province repealed its province-wide ban of 2020.

Outside mainland China the rules differ. Hong Kong has banned the private use of fireworks since the 1960s, when they were recycled into crude bombs, Hong Kong Free Press noted in 2018, though the ban is often flouted in the New Territories. Singapore banned firecrackers for good in 1972 after an attack on two policemen; with permits, they went off in Chinatown on the eve of the New Year in 2004 before a crowd of 20,000. Vietnam banned making, selling and setting off firecrackers in 1995 after fatal accidents, and a decree of 2020 legalised sparklers, but nothing louder, for Tết, weddings and other celebrations. The Diwali fireworks have their own history and their own bans.