When the Chinese New Year comes, fireworks and strings of colorful lights illuminate the night sky. It is meant to send off the old year and ring in the new.

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Fireworks and firecrackers, known as Yanhua and Baozhu in Chinese, were originally made of real bamboo. They were traditionally set off to frighten away ghosts and monsters so that the New Year would be free of them. Legend has it that long ago there was a monster that terrorized people and animals at the end of the year. But this animal was frightened of loud noise, bright lights, and red color. At midnight, on the last day of the old year, these things are used to scare away the monster for another year. You can hear or see fireworks and firecrackers everywhere. Some people will continue to play them occasionally throughout the first half of the first lunar month.