From Xinhua – English:
Firecracker booms rocked urban Beijing with bright flashes during this year’s Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, challenging the city’s 12-year-old ban on the festive but often dangerous explosives.
Even within the second ringroad — the innermost areas of Beijing’s city proper, cracks are constantly heard created by unidentified passers-by, though posters reading “firecrackers forbidden” are seen in nearly every street.
Most Beijingers seem quite used to such open defiance which is seen nearly every year since firecrackers were first banned in 1993.
