Double-Kick Your Way Into The Year Of The Ox

By Chris Devonshire-Ellis

Bam…..BAAM!!! Anyone who has heard those sounds, usually during Chinese New Year – will be familiar with the Chinese “Double Kick” firework – a not-so-subtle piece of pyrotechnics more related to a stick of dynamite than to a rocket. Amidst all the cacophony of whizzes, crashes, bangs and zooms that will, quite literally, explode on Sunday evening on Chinese New Year’s eve, it is the double kick that reigns supreme – and is my favorite. Simplicity vs. Technical Excellence. Brute Force vs. Magnificent Starbursts. Decibels vs. Screeches, and sheer bombast vs. spectacle – the Double Kick is the one that REALLY counts when you want to make an impact.

At 60 kwai for a bunch of ten, they are a pretty good and inexpensive way to make sure your presence is felt among the distractions of the more feminine green, gold and red colored sparkling rockets, the machine gun like chatter of firecrackers, or those annoying squealing, whistling flares that only reach twenty feet. The Double Kick is the WWF against the US Open. No pretty precision shots on the green, this baby can rock your entire apartment building when set off – Tiger Woods eat your heart out.

The things look like dynamite too, just light brown colored sticks straight out of an old John Wayne movie. Even the most hardened of Chinese firemeisters treats them with respect too, coolly approaching with a last suck on his cigarette, he lights the fuse and beats a hasty retreat. Ten feet is good, twenty even better. An ear-splitting, earth tremor-inducing blast shakes the ground, and the entire thing shoots 50 feet in the air, followed by a second almighty crash as if God himself has rent the air with his venom. It’s the bane of neighboring buildings…the window panes rattle, the baby awakes, the dogs howl, and cower, terrified under the bed, and not for you is there any decent night’s sleep. But back at Ground Zero, the protagonist smiles, with the satisfying smirk that he alone has produced the sounds of Hell, and the loudest, most brutal explosion on the street. Basic they may be, but with the point being to scare off any lingering ghosts from the New Year, with Double Kicks around you can be sure the Year of The Ox will start with the biggest bang. And who would want it any other way ?