The centuries-old Spring Festival custom in China originated from a legend. According to the legend, an evil beast named "Nian" assault humans every Lunar New Year's Eve household by household and village by village in ancient times. Eventually, villagers managed to scare the "Nian" away by setting off firecrackers, from which the traditional festival custom evolved nationwide.

However, in recent years firecrackers have been regarded far and wide as environmentally unfriendly and harmful, as people, especially children, easily get hurt when setting them off.

Even worse, safety during fireworks production has become a knotty problem in the country. Numerous fatal accidents have occurred at fireworks factories in Jiangxi, Liaoning, and Hubei provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in recent years.

To guard against and prevent the occurrence of such casualties, local governments at various levels have taken a wide range of steps to slash fireworks production and use. Authorities in Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces, in particular, have shut down alltheir firecraker-making factories, and some big cities have even banned the lighting of firecrackers mainly in their downtown areas.

But many Chinese would prefer keeping the tradition alive, as they consider festivals dull and monotonous without the customary displays. During this Spring Festival, the cracks of fireworks were more frequently heard in major Chinese cities, even in the downtown areas, echoing calls in some media for a lifting of the ban.

Statistics show that China is now the largest fireworks producer and exporter in the world. Boasting more than 600,000 employees, thousands of firecracker factories in the country turn out 45 million cases a year, with annual output worth 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion US dollars). The labor-intensive industry garners 400 million US dollars in export earnings every year, or about 90 percent of the world's total trade in fireworks.

In the wake of disastrous accidents and the closure of factories in some economically-developed coastal regions, the firecracker industry has been flourishing over recent years in Liuyang city, in central-south China's Hunan Province.

A world leader in fireworks production, Liuyang since 1998 has spent 500 million yuan (60.24 million US dollars) in technical upgrades for the sector and closed 10,000 small workshops that failed to comply with safety criteria.

The city has also drawn up a set of strict standards for accessto fireworks production. It may cost nearly one million yuan (120,480 US dollars) to launch a firecracker factory in the city, more than 50 percent higher than in neighboring areas. Almost all the money targets improved production safety.

Three fireworks facilities in the city of Liuyang have each installed a 120,480-US dollar video monitoring system to superviseevery operation of their workers, according to local industrial authorities. Awareness of production safety has been well established in the city's fireworks industry, the authorities add.

The sector, boasting annual sales of more than 2 billion yuan (241 million US dollars), has reported no serious production accidents since 1998. Now it sells fireworks to 100-odd countries and regions, with exports accounting for 60 percent of China's total.

The "Liuyang Pattern" is believed to demonstrate the firecracker industry is able to operate safely, which may justify the future resumption of displays in big cities.

Calls for the resumption also come from some celebrities.

Feng Jicai, a prestigious writer and a specialist in Chinese folk customs, suggests replacing the ban with restrictions on fireworks and relaxing pollution criteria .

Though some drown every year, people continue to go swimming, and though auto exhausts pollute the environment much more seriously than fireworks do, motor vehicles are not banned, Feng argues.

To satisfy fireworks fans, two cities in central-south China's Henan province recently decided to lift the ban on setting off firecrackers in their downtown areas.

(People's Daily February 11, 2003)