Liuyang City, China's largest fireworks-producing city, set off a 20 km string of firecrackers, which lasted for more than an hour. And nobody from Guinness World Records agreed to show up."We hope the success of making the longest firecracker will increase the confidence of producers and make our city well known across the country," said Xu Qiangguo, head of the Liuyang Firecrackers Bureau. Damn, why don't we have a Firecracker Bureau in my town?
The promotional event cost over $100,000 and many people in the region weren't happy about it.
"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.
"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."
Chinese towns have long 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. And while these hardly mean anything, can't we just understand that you need to keep a country with over a billion people busy, especially if half of them are living in rural poverty?
No comments:
Post a Comment