The Chinese New Year traditionally lasts through the 15th day of the lunar calendar's first month, a holiday known as the Lantern Festival (Yuan-Hsiao). This is the final climax of the New Year's celebration. For adults, it brings memories of another time, when the lanterns they carried as children were hand-made of paper-mache or drilled-out milk cans. The materials have changed, but the celebration has not: children today still fill the night streets with their lanterns to conclude the New Year celebrations.

But in Yan-shuei, a town in Southern Taiwan, the residents have for 180 years celebrated Yuan-Hsiao after their own peculiar fashion. The "rocket hive" (feng-tsai-p'ao) adds color, richness and ecstasy to the concluding Chinese New Year celebrations. Seeing is believing. Only by going to Yan-shuei can one realize their unique and artful way of shooting fire works.

Visitors arrive on Yuan-Hsiao early in the afternoon to see, even in the town's outskirts, strings of firecrackers hung from branches, eaves and along both sides of the road. But the "real thing" is further in. In the town's main streets, most of the stores are closed, their doors covered with "Highly Flammable" signs. It's just another way of saying "Welcome". Welcome to Rocket Hive City.

A hive itself is made of a wooden frame covered with steel netting. Thousands of rockets peek out radially through the net, their fuses connected inside to a master fuse which spirals up from the bottom, igniting layer after layer of rockets, each layer shooting out more rapidly than the one before. The rockets swarm like bees from a hive and the hives are everywhere.

In the old days, Yan-shuei was the biggest strategic centre between Lu-gang and Tainan. It was a bustling, commercial city. It was also a dump for diseases spread by those travelling north from Tainan. During the Ching Dynasty a plague went rampant in Yan-shuei, taking hundreds of lives. Medicine failed, and the residents turned to Heaven for help.

Kuan-yu, a general of the Three Kingdoms period who was later deified as the Sage of the Martial Arts, has always been Yan-shuei's most revered god. Disease persisted, and the residents invited Kuan-yu to exorcize the plague on his birthday (two days before Yuan-Hsiao), and he accompanied the exorcism by designing and igniting the rocket hive, a further effort to scare off the plague. After three consecutive days of fireworks (ending on Yuan-Hsiso), the plague, as tradition has it, was beaten. After 180 years, Yan-shuei itself has fallen behind, but the tradition of the feng-tsai-p'ao has retained its vigor.

This year, 200,000 people crowded into Yan-shuei for the rocket hive festival. They waited for early evening, when the parade started and the first string of firecrackers was lit. Kuan-Yu's palanquin proceeded down the street. His bearers wore helmets, protective goggles, face masks, gloves, scarves. Not an inch of their skin was exposed. If the way leads them straight into a hive, so be it. They could not run or hide.

A small rocket hive holds 5,000 rockets, all of which are spit out in about thirty seconds. The big hives may hold as many as 20,000 rockets, and there is not a square foot of completely safe space anywhere within a 100 meter radius of the things. It's best to dress appropriately: a helmet, blue jeans, and running shoes.

According to legend, only those guilty of breaches of conscience can be stung. Victims do not complain aloud.

The hives are actually only one of several kinds of explosive contraptions. Atop his horse Ch'i T'u, Kuan-yu holds a whip and reins of firecrackers. The horse's belly hides an arsenal of rockets. Since this is the year of the rat, a few people have made rat-style hives which run rampant through the streets, spewing their cargoes. A perhaps more graceful and certainly more relaxing spectacle is a waterfall of flares; strings of flares draped in rows which light up the entire street. Finally, there is a prize for anyone who can shoot a rocket into a gourd perched atop a ten-meter pole. The gourd has only a few small holes in it, but you'll know when you've hit the target: the inside is packed full of gunpowder.

Yan-shuei's festival runs without break through the early morning of the next day. That is time enough for the residents to set off nearly N.T.$10,000,000 worth of fireworks. Outsiders may question this sort of extravagance, but the residents don't fret: tradition says the more you set off, the richer you get. Don't laugh. Yan-shuei residents have been lighting fireworks this wildly for 180 years without a single disaster. They must be doing something right.

(Christopher Case)

[Picture Caption]

1. "The rockets", packed tightly together before being put into the "hives". 2. Besides the electrifying spectacle of the rockets, onlookers are treated to colorful firework displays. 3. A swirling sea of fire and light as the rockets explode from the hives. 4. The densely-packed rows of rockets are connected by one fuse to ensure effective exploding. 5. To protect the god's image from being "stung", the palanquin is wrapped in a dense layer of steel-mesh netting. 6. The palanquin bearers must dress in protective clothing.

The spectacle attracts thousands of spectators, dressed in protective clothing. 2,3,4. The hives take on a variety of different forms, such as, 2. Kuan-yu, the Sage of the Martial Arts on horseback, 3. A colorfully decorated car and, 4. A farmer. All are densely packed with the explosive rockets. 5. According to the ancient custom, the palanquin bearers carry the god's image in to the midst of the exploding firecrackers. 6. Onlookers are attracted to the beauty and color of the "waterfall of flares."

1. A long bamboo pole is erected in front of Ch'iehlan temple to hold the firecracker gourd. 2. Thousands of rockets explode at the same time in a show of sound and light to the delight of the spectators.

2. Besides the electrifying spectacle of the rockets, onlookers are treated to colorful firework displays.

3. A swirling sea of fire and light as the rockets explode from the hives.

4. The densely-packed rows of rockets are connected by one fuse to ensure effective exploding.

5. To protect the god's image from being "stung", the palanquin is wrapped in a dense layer of steel-mesh netting.

6. The palanquin bearers must dress in protective clothing.

1. "The rockets", packed tightly together before being put into the "hives".

2,3,4. The hives take on a variety of different forms, such as, 2. Kuan-yu, the Sage of the Martial Arts on horseback.

3. A colorfully decorated car and, 4. A farmer. All are densely packed with the explosive rockets.

6. Onlookers are attracted to the beauty and color of the "waterfall of flares.".

5. According to the ancient custom, the palanquin bearers carry the god's image in to the midst of the exploding firecrackers.

A colorfully decorated car and, 4. A farmer. All are densely packed with the explosive rockets.

1. A long bamboo pole is erected in front of Ch'iehlan temple to hold the firecracker gourd.

2. Thousands of rockets explode at the same time in a show of sound and light to the delight of the spectators.