The magic of fireworks - Vancouver's Celebration of Light 2010 Final Show

Tonight was "A tribute to China"  show, the final day of annual  Vancouver's fireworks competition - Celebration of Light 2010. The theme was inspired by "The Butterfly Lovers legend", a wonderful Chinese history tale. China was the winners of 2009 Celebration of Light with "Through the Looking Glass" show.

The fireworks choreography was exotic and with many visual effects, and the spectators  enjoyed the magic of these psychedelic space rockets which exploded in several different ways.

Fireworks legend has it that fireworks were discovered by accident by a Chinese cook working in a field kitchen who happened to mix charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter, some 2000 years ago. The mixture burned and exploded when compressed in a bamboo tube.

The Chinese people celebrate the invention of firecracker every April 18.

The firecrackers are thought to have the power to frightened evil spirits and ghosts and the Chinese New Year is a popular event that is celebrated with firecrackers to begin in the new year without evil spirits.

I was intriqued about the technology used for making them: first stage of burning is a jet engine that send the firework shooting through the air, and the several burning stages have many colorful explosions with the  fuse running all the way through them, all the color effects being realised with metal compounds: sodium give yellow and white, copper and barium give green or blue and calcium make red.

Congrats to all competitors who competed to be crowned the winner, but especially to the winner who was announced few hours ago: Spain !

"Viva le Spania!"   

The fireworks was, is and always will be an amazing, fun and spectacular show.