Ever year on the Lantern Festival in a small town just north of Tainan called Yanshuei, local residents pour into the streets to fire rockets. No, this isn't a centuries old feud or a localized war zone, it's just an ancient remedy for healing the blues. In modern times, the celebration is used to ring in the final days of the Chinese New Year celebration. In Taipei, sky lanterns are released into the heavens while in Yanshuei it's a free-for-all rocket extravaganza bound to wake up the neighbors. In the next city over.Eight intrepid volunteers, not quite understanding what we were in for, congregated at 7.30am outside Taipei Main Station on a Sunday morning ready to board a bus that would take us to the other side of the island. Coffees in hand, The China Post folded squarely under our arms, we hopped aboard and set forth on a five hour bus ride to Yanshuei. We arrived in the town just a little after noon, with still enough time to explore this unique village.
Yanshuei's fortunate proximity to Taiwan's former capital, Tainan, allows this village to boast some truly extraordinary architectural relics. We were able to tour some splendid homes, venerable temples, and one unique and antiquated "old street".
This old street was a short but windy stretch of cobblestone street lined with wooden structures dating back hundreds of years. Some were opened to the public with old fashioned Chinese goods decorating the inner halls. The highlight was a still functioning blacksmith that was out on the street producing his wares for onlookers to witness.
Around the corner was a unique structure- a mansion house of sorts made entirely of wood. The layout of the grounds reminded us of a wooden temple. Inside housed some contemporary and classical Chinese art which made for a rather surreal experience.
The city itself was lined with quaint old buidlings mixed with modern ones, making for some rather pleasant strolls around town. The temple of Guan Gong was perhaps the most densely populated with worshippers coming from all walks of life to pray. The temple was decorated with bright, warm colors, while heavy looming incense burned through the air.
But the lighthearted strolls through the city were suddenly halted with a preminisence of things to come- a rare glimpse into what was to be displayed later in the evening. As we were walking, we noticed a group of people bunching into a tented area taking pictures and murmuring amongst themselves. We walked up to the crowed and peered into the canopied structure: inside we finally saw our first Beehive Rocket Structure.
As far as beehive rockets go, this one would be considered small to medium sized. It's height was about one "me" and a half, and it's length was roughly equivalent to that of a car. It had about 15 or 20 rows of little rockets stacked neatly next to one another. All in all, there were thousands of rockets on this contraption. All we could do was look at this and say, they're gonna shoot those at us? What?
Oh, right, did I forget to mention that the rockets are shot at the crowds rather than up in the sky? That's an important detail and I think it should be mentiond. Yes, these little puppies are lit on the tail end and then go buzzing into the jumping spectators and burn, srape and explode all over the crowd. That is why we were instructed to bring safety equipment with us.
As the sun was setting and the festivities were starting, we returned back to the bus to don our evening armor. We had to wear a non flammable winter jacket (in 90 degree heat no less), a full faced helmet with a towel fastened around our neck, gloves, long pants, and shoes. Not a millimeter of skin was exposed. Dressed like knights, we strolled into the starting gates where waterfalls of fireworks were raining down. My friend and I danced back and forth through what was probably melted iron as far as we knew, until finally the first bee hive rocket appeared.
As the fuse was lit, everyone started jumping up and down. Initially I thought this was to prevent rockets from hitting you head on. (For some strange reason when rockets are being fired at you, your initial reaction is to jump up and down.) But actually, the jumping is part of the history of the festival. In years gone by, namely in the middle ages, southern Taiwan was struck with the plague. With no proper medicine to handle the epidemic, the local townspeople resorted to explosives. In what I can only imagine to be a primitive display of bombs going off around the locals, the idea was to jump up and down and shake out the bad spirits causing the plague. Evidently the ritual was a success and the bad spirits are warded off annually with loud noises and TNT.
After a minute or so of this barrage, the crowd went on the move. Essentially the crowd would parade through the streets and anticipating shop keeps would bring out their beehive rocket cages and fire upon the crowd. After some aimless parading, the mob came to a halt. At this point, people set off loud firecrackers in the streets while the firework waterfalls went off in two separate locations. It's as if they were corralling us into a ranch like cattle. Well, after about fifteen minutes of these boomers going off, a silence fell upon a crowd. And then, with much suspense, an enormous garage door opened slowly and the darkly lit room inside did not reveal what was in store. The crowd watch on in hushed anticipation, as if King Kong himself were to come storming out and wreak havoc on the streets. But the reality was much worse.
From the depth of the shadows emerged a contraption so large, so complex, it put all notions of previous beehive fireworks to shame. There, parting the crowd in two, stood a beehive firework box the size of a mac truck, loaded with tens of thousands of rockets aim directly at us. Being only about ten feet away from the behemoth I knew I was in for a dangerously close encounter with the beast. If this thing couldn't ward off the bad spirits, I don't know what could.
What followed was a good twenty minutes of continued rockets flying, bouncing, exploding and all of the above all around you. This puppy was the reason my body was covered in bruises and burns when the night was out. It finished with an impressive firework display of setting off even larger rockets into the night sky. After a good half hour of this, and drenched in sweat, we decided a recuperation period was needed to nurse the wounds inflicted by this behemoth. Speaking of injury, perhaps the most interesting was one rocket found it's way up into my friend's helmet and burnt a little hole in his hair!
At this time, we met up with another friend who wisely slept in and took a train down to meet us. We put on our gear, caught back up with the parade, and jumped with the best of them. The remaining rocket cages ranged in sizes from a refrigerator to a compact car; but each one placed one hell of a punch. It should be noted in the photos that some of our clothing obtained small burned holes. One interesting anecdote was came after a particularly close encounter with a set of rockets. As I was walking away, my friend started patting the back of my head. I asked him what he was doing and he said my back was on fire. I told him to continue putting it out. As he was doing this, someone was behind him patting him on the head too. Turns out he was on fire as well!
The night was a complete riot of an evening. It was like bombs were going off at every turn. Sometimes fireworks would misfire and explode in the street, and those really smart when they hit next to you. Ambulances were going off all night, and we stopped counting after ten. But I think the most remarkable aspect of the evening was that, in a town with such historical old buildings all made of wood, it's a wonder that it hasn't burned down yet.
From your plauge shaking, pyro blasting, fire smoking beehive rocket knight of Yanshuei, Michael.
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