In the Yanshui area of southern Taiwan, people take the Lantern Festival seriously. This area is home to the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, a fireworks show unlike any other.
The festival is held to commemorate a cholera epidemic that took place more than a century ago. Fireworks were supposedly able to exorcise the demons that caused the plague. But the fireworks at this festival aren’t being launched into the sky.
When the Lantern Festival comes around, the Yanshui area of Tainan resembles a battlefield. Rockets go off in all directions, fired into the streets from specially-built structures called “beehives”. To prevent injury, spectators clad themselves in helmets, fire resistant jackets, and thick gloves. About 800,000 fireworks go off in total from 9pm to 3am.
This is the annual Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival. This year’s event, held over Monday and Tuesday, attracted 650,000 people.
Naturally, taking part in this festival comes with risks. This year, about 28 participants suffered minor injuries. However, in this part of Taiwan, people still head into the line of fire in the name of tradition.
