New Year celebrations in Beijing have proved yet again how hard it is to legislate against Chinese tradition.
Despite the capital's 12-year-old fireworks ban, the boom of crackers rocked the city and bright flashes lit up the sky.
Even within the second ring road - the innermost areas of Beijing's city proper - crackers constantly exploded next to posters reading "Firecrackers forbidden."
The ban has been openly defied since it was introduced in 1993.
This year, however, the city put a special office in charge of the ban and expanded the banned areas beyond the fifth ring road into some densely inhabited areas on the outskirts.
Before the holiday, the office sent a short message to cell-phone subscribers to remind them of the ban.
On Tuesday, the Chinese New Year's Eve, Beijing police sent 130,000 policemen, market regulators and volunteers to patrol urban streets, but firecrackers were still constantly heard, particularly on the fourth and fifth ring roads.
"We stepped up publicity weeks before the holiday and it worked to some extent," said Vice Mayor Ji Lin.
But he admitted some areas were "out of control."
Some residents had bought firecrackers from rural markets.
A middle-aged man named Meng confessed he led his family to light firecrackers in his downtown community on New Year's Eve because he used to do the same every year as a child.
"That's the tradition handed down from generation to generation," he said.
Even a lawyer set off crackers in his downtown community in Dongzhimen, where fireworks are strictly banned.
"Childhood memories still cling to me and I cannot help lighting firecrackers to celebrate the family festival and particularly to make my son happy," said Wang Xiaohui, 37, who has been an attorney in Beijing for 15 years.
Zheng Yimin, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, said the Chinese New Year in the traditional sense is a carnival.
"With firecrackers banned, the festival is far less joyous," he said.
With the increasing popularity of Western holidays in China, the country's biggest family-reunion festival is gradually falling out of favor among urban Chinese, Zheng said.
Though Beijing's lawmakers deliberated residents' calls for removal of the firecracker ban during their annual session in 2004, they eventually upheld the ban on safety grounds.
The firecracker ban office said on Saturday that 53 Beijingers were injured on New Year's Eve as they set off fireworks.
Two leading downtown hospitals, Tongren and Jishuitan, received 19 people injured by crackers between 6pm on Tuesday and 1am on Wednesday. Only two of them were hurt in the suburbs where firecrackers are allowed.
Responding to residents' calls, 105 Chinese cities, including Shanghai, have removed the firecracker ban.
Shanghai Fire Control Bureau said yesterday the number of fires during this year's Spring Festival was the lowest in the past 10 years.
Between 6pm on Tuesday and 8am yesterday, the bureau received 367 fire alarms, only 58 of which were real emergencies, officials said.
There were no major fires on Saturday night or early yesterday, the fifth day of the New Year, when Chinese people welcome the God of Fortune by setting off many fireworks.
And no fireworks-related accidents were reported on Saturday night or yesterday morning.