Twelve mile firecracker string
Liuyang City, China's largest fireworks-producing city, set off a 20 km (12.4 mile) string of firecrackers. It lasted for more than an hour but unfortunately nobody from Guinness World Records agreed to show up. The promotional event cost over $100,000 and many people in the region weren't happy about it. From Reuters:
"Unless the firecrackers are supposed to be part of a cinema scene of raging war, what benefits can come from setting off 20 kilometers of fireworks?" asked the Beijing Times...Link (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)
Chinese towns have staged a variety of fantastic 'records', including the world's largest mooncake, the world's longest whisper and the most people ever to fit on a golf course.
"It's high time to call off applications for the professed 'longest' or 'most' records, such as 10,000 people eating hotpot and 10,000 people washing their feet together. They lack social significance as well as scientific and technical skills," said an editorial in the Guangzhou Daily, which called the event a "real burden for the local economy."
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I'm with the editorial. People are doing stupider and stupider things with the goal of setting a world record. I guess everyone wants their 15 minutes.
What? A 12 mile long string of firecrackers sounds great! It's like a parade without any people. I would have gone to watch that.
The concept sounds fun. Spending $100,000 on it as a cheap stunt while your region is filled with impoverished, starving people, not so much.
A read this as 12 mile firecracker STING, which sounds dangerous and exciting.
What a waste.
Now, if they had the twelve mile firecracker string race a twelve line of dominoes, that would be a noble effort.
...Jeez, what does the Commie Propaganda Press over in China expect a surplus of a billion people oppressed by Communism to do with their spare time? They're still obviously working en masse towards a collective goal, only instead of meeting the year plan's target goals for shoes and chopsticks, they're trying to bring *real* prestige as viewed by the world outside the Bamboo Curtain.
Wonder if their press would still be whining if, say, 10,000 Chinese labored instead to build the world's largest copy of Mao's Little Red Book...
[shakes head in utter dismay]
Om, have you missed China's cannonball dive into the capitalist swimming pool?