Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival 2013 鹽水蜂炮

Posted by on Feb 20, 2013 in blog, Taiwan, Temple Culture, travel | 14 Comments

This year’s guide and schedule to Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival can be found here: http://www.wumiao.idv.tw/

On the 14th of the first lunar month (Saturday, Feb 23rd Gregorian calendar) a temple parade leaves the Yanshui Wu Temple at 8am.

At 6PM there will be three groups of gods (Line A, B and C) leaving from the  Yanshui Wu Temple. You will want to be wearing protective clothing and helmet as these groups stand in front of walls of bottle rockets. If you don’t know what Yanshui is all about, see my post here. Choose a line and follow the group for the whole night or break off and find another line.

A barrage of firecrackers and bottle rockets blast participants at the annual Yanshui beehive fireworks festival in Yen Shui Village, Tainan County, Taiwan

A barrage of bottle rockets

On the 15th of the first lunar month (Sunday Feb 24th Gregorian calendar) two parades leave the Yanshui Wu Temple, one at 7:30 bound for Xinying and one at noon.

At 6PM there will be four groups of gods (Line A, B, C and D) leaving from the  Yanshui Wu Temple. My personal favorite is the line that goes behind the temple (I’m not sure if this is abc or d without pulling out a map of Yanshui) because the first big wall is a screw factory that has a huge wall. A nice start to the festival. There is usually a special wall, often made by a tea shop that will be set off as a special event sometime during the night that is worth asking where when and what it is. If you last the whole night the final wall is quite fun because all the god chairs come together for it.

Battered by Bottle Rockets

Battered by Bottle Rockets at the annual Yenshui beehive fireworks festival in Yen Shui Village, Tainan County, Taiwan

If you are going to try to photograph the festival my photographing Yanshui guide might help: http://thetaiwanphotographer.com/tear-sheet-yanshui-beehive-fireworks-festival-in-action-asia/

And some of my photographs and some more information about the fireworks festival here: http://thetaiwanphotographer.com/projects/yanshui-beehive-fireworks-festival-guide-%E9%B9%BD%E6%B0%B4%E8%9C%82%E7%82%AE/