Beijing may ban New Year fireworks

BEIJING – Imagine New York’s Times Square without the ball drop, or London without the ringing of Big Ben. Beijing is preparing for its own big celebration – the Lunar New Year – but may mark the holiday this week with a ban on fireworks, a Chinese tradition and invention.

City authorities have warned that if weather patterns are conducive to choking air pollution in the next few days, they may ban residents from their usual mass-ignition of pyrotechnics.

Like many government edicts in China, this one hasn’t won universal acclaim, either nationally or on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. Numerous commenters support the conditional ban, and online petitions may have helped prompt the government to propose it. But a large number of netizens see it as a misdirected move by nanny bureaucrats out of touch with the people.

“Extreme stupidity,” wrote one. “The government doesn’t do a good job of environmental protection with industries. Instead it blames the very small amount of fireworks.”

City officials say they won’t know until just before the start of the Lunar New Year on Friday if fireworks are banned.

Chinese New Year, known as Spring Festival here, is China’s most anticipated and dreaded celebration of the year. Hundreds of millions of people are on the move, visiting friends and family around the big week. If travel wasn’t stressful enough, there’s all kinds of gift-giving expectations. And then there are the fireworks.

While Americans now generally mark the Fourth of July with organized fireworks displays and some sparklers on the front lawn, Beijing is known for an epic riot of pyrotechnics during the Lunar New Year. For hours, at the beginning and end of the festival, the skies across much of the city boom with explosions and are ablaze with color.