bian POW!!!!1

in beijing, setting off fireworks (fa bian pao) is illegal, for obvious reasons. you don't want 15 million people recklessly launching highly flammable explosives in a dense urban area. however, that law only applies within the fifth ring road, the fifth highway that circles the city. so, guess where all 15 million people go to set off fireworks on the chinese new year: immediately outside the fifth ring road. and, since i'm writing this introduction, guess where i was on new year's eve. that's right, immediately outside the fifth ring road.

for reasons i won't go into in this blog post, i ended up about a mile outside the fifth ring road at 11:45 pm on new year's eve with a recently divorced chinese lawyer, four chinese people i didn't know, one of which was a doctor, and a korean-canadian diplomat from montreal with one leg in a full cast. a motley crew to be sure. immediately after passing under the highway, it was like world war iii. people were running everywhere, we had to swerve around enormous strings of firecrackers in the middle of the street, fireworks bouncing of buildings, etc. i don't know how, but some chinese people got their hands on some pretty serious ordinance. some of the explosions literally shook the ground. the above picture is fireworks bursting on the horizon.

needless to say, we had our own large cardboard box filled with with explosives. of course, before setting anything off, the chinese folks in our group decided it would be a good idea to start smoking. that is why, in the picture below, i am using a cigarette to light a rather exciting collection of fireworks. one of the tubes decided that vertical was not its preferred trajectory, and instead choose a more horizontal flavor. the damn thing ended up bursting about ten feet away, after bouncing off own of our cars.

all in all, a very fun time. here's your parting shot, beijing at sunset on new year's day.