How to survive this Taiwanese Lunar New Year fireworks festival – wearing a helmet helps

Led by what sounds like distant artillery fire, I advance down a dark street, red sticks and paper from spent rockets and other fireworks crunching underfoot. The explosions die down and I quicken my pace, hoping to encounter the next salvo. I turn a corner next to another quiet, white-tiled ter­raced house, and there in front of me is a nearly impene­trable wall of smiling faces, each beneath a scooter helmet.

Slowly pushing their way along the narrow alley, the helmet heads clot around something in the distance. My thick jacket, jeans and gloves feel awkward in the mild, tropical February weather. A small panic quickens my heart as I think about replacing the sweaty helmet I took off two blocks back – but it hasn’t begun yet. It’ll be obvious when it does.

Pushing deeper into the crowd, I crane my neck to see a cluster of three god statues bobbing up and down on litters as heavily clad volunteers shoulder their poles. Sooty leather is riveted to the helmets of the gods’ entourage, giving each member an air of hardened experience. The gods playfully wheel around, make a series of false starts then pause as the crowd eddies around them. It’s hard to see the little colourful statues because they are protected by mesh screens flecked with red paper and sticks – the shrapnel of previous assaults.

I assume the higher ranking gods sit on the larger, wheel­ed litters, but I don’t have much time to make sure as other spectators jostle for position. Looking like shoddy spacemen in their protective clothes and helmets, they are trying to guess where the next “beehive” will appear from.