英语阅读：Fireworks ban will kill a tradition
Sparks from fireworks were suspected to have caused the fire that lastedsix hours from Monday evening until the early hours of yesterday morning and
nearly destroyed the newly built Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Beijing. The
incident triggered a new round of argument in the Chinese capital in favor of
prohibiting the practice of celebrating festivals with fireworks.
My instinctive reaction to the new idea is that it is like giving up eating
because of choking.
Fireworks can bring fun to people; they can also cause fire. It is
ridiculous to desert fireworks simply because we want to stop conflagration.
Fire can be prevented so long as proper measures are taken. This logic applies
to many other things that have two sides in consequence. For instance,
paper-making can pollute the environment. We can ask the paper makers to treat
their waste water to the level of minimum pollution and shut down those plants
that failed to do so; we can also improve the technology of pollution control,
but we cannot give up the making of paper.
Fireworks were once banned in Chinese cities for more than a decade. As a
result, almost a whole generation of children was deprived of the fun of
celebrating festivals in a colorful, glittering and cheerful way. They did not
even know what fireworks were. Many people recalled that the Spring Festival
holidays in those years were "without any atmosphere of the New Year's Day at
all."
Chinese cities began to lift the ban the year before the last, which also
witnessed the government's decision to declare two more traditional festivals as
public holidays. Since then, many other traditional ways of celebrating
festivals were resumed. The moves greatly enhanced Chinese people's, especially
the younger generation's, sense of treasuring traditional culture. The
significance of this fact needs no explanation, for any nation that rejects its
own traditional culture will eventually be rejected by the world.
The call for resumption of the fireworks ban also reminds me of what
President Hu Jintao has criticized as "zheteng." In his speech at a conference
marking the 30th anniversary of China's launch of the reform and opening-up
drive, President Hu called for "bu zheteng," or "no more zheteng."
Though it is hard to find a precise English equivalent, "zheteng" literally
means "senseless vacillation between alternatives," referring to the practice of
repeatedly changing the development orientation of a certain cause or taking
sudden moves that lead to troubles.
In recent years, we have witnessed many instances of zheteng. For example,
the content of "education reform" has changed several times, ranging from
"turning education into an (profit-making) industry" to "expanding enrollment of
university students" to "practicing 'quality education' in schools." The
problems brought along by these moves are manifest. Parents and students, who
suffered the most from these problems, are the strongest opponents of zheteng in
the field of education.
With regard to the issue of fireworks, I think we also need to stop
"zheteng." All the problems of loud noises and injuries caused by fireworks are
easy to settle. So long as the authorities are serious in monitoring and banning
the production, trafficking and sale of powerful and dangerous kinds of
fireworks, there is no need to give up this joyful way of celebrating our
traditional festivals.
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