New Year‘s Fireworks

When I thought about Chinese New Year, I thought parades, fireworks, dancing dragons, lanterns, and a gigantic, country wide celebration.  A party that surely rivals that in the west.  In fact, I have found that for the most part, the Chinese New Year is instead very traditional. I think of it like Thanksgiving for the west. Mostly families spend time together, and there weren't any lavish parties or dragons dancing! (Can you tell it was something I was begging to find?) I was hoping for a huge festival but it seems as though its very very traditional.

However, the bar I went to bought some ridiculously big fireworks and set them off in the street. Everywhere you looked, people were lighting off fireworks, so it was really cool to see the night sky lit up in all directions.  The video I made doesn't do the show justice, as the fireworks were SO loud. I was getting hit by shrapnel when trying to film the video - because these Chinese fireworks are the big mortar shells that most ordinary citizens in the US cant buy, but apparently its a good idea to allow everyone in China to have access to these mini sticks of dynomite! And the mighty mights?  More like thousands of miniature m80s... my ears were ringing for 2 days after.