A hearty Ni Hao from Shanghai

Happy New Year to the people of the Chinese People's Republic of China. It's the year of the rabbit and anyone born in one of the previous year's of the rabbit should wear red pants all year apparently. It's good luck. I think it may be a ploy by the Shanghai Red Pant Trading Co. to shift some red pants.
Anyway, Chinese people don't celebrate New Year by buying expensive tickets to get into a pub you otherwise go to for nothing the rest of the year, getting pissed as a newt, bursting into tears and having to walk home because there aren't any fucking cabs. The weirdos.
No.
Theirs is a more traditional, sophisticated, honouring of the gods. That's right. They set fire to their city.
They do this using fireworks and fire crackers.
Other traditional Chinese New Year celebration techniques involve keeping Westerners awake all night using fireworks and firecrackers, frightening Western pedestrians who have just popped out to buy beer using fireworks and firecrackers and setting off fireworks and firecrackers.
It all adds up to quite the conflagration.
Here are some of the magnificent blow offs I witnessed from the balcony on the 32nd floor.

A Shanghai Hairy Crab

Three Whizz Bangs.

From left to right: A Xhao Jia Bang, a Maiden's Starfish and a little Parper.

A Giant Let Off and, on the right, that building there just blew up.