Yesterday afternoon I came across this fireworks shop on Weihai Lu, two blocks from the China Bay office. Most of the fireworks were sold on the sidewalk, and a salesman with a cigarette (!) hanging from his mouth was serving the customers. I observed it for a while and noted that most people buy huge amounts of fireworks, nobody bought just a few fire crackers. And nobody warned the salesman that cigarettes and hundreds of kilo’s of fireworks could be a lethal combination. In Holland sales outlets for fireworks need to take special protective measures, but in China they just put it all on the street. And this shop is not selling it illegally, but is officially licensed (see the red banner above the fireworks). I wonder what the requirements for licensing were!

One thing I do not understand: why are sales of fireworks allowed in Shanghai, but setting them off not?