Meet the man who runs the fireworks industry
A single Chinese businessman provides your July 4th pyrotechnics.
On July 4, 2012, San Diego was ready to party. The city had prepared its annual Big Bay Boom, amassing a collection of fireworks destined for a 20 minute pyrotechnic extravaganza. Crowds gathered at vantage points around the city, craning for a glimpse of the fireworks display.
But the fireworks were there and gone in a flash. A catastrophic technical glitch ignited the entire arsenal of fireworks simultaneously, forming a fireball that could be seen for miles. The whole mess was over in less than 30 seconds flat, and it looked like a sci fi apocalypse.
As it turns out, the fireworks industry itself is no less volatile. Fireworks were first created in China, and the country controls North America’s access to fireworks today. Or, more accurately: one man in China reportedly controls the fireworks industry. His name is Mr. Ding.
Fireworks can be traced back more than a thousand years. As the story goes, a monk named Li Tian made the first firework from gunpowder and bamboo, which produced “a bang loud enough to scare away ghosts.” Today, Li Tian’s memory is honored with an enormous statue, and fireworks still rely on the same basic components.
During the Renaissance, people figured out how to add color to fireworks. The Verge broke down how fireworks colors work: “Strontium compounds give us red, barium gives us green, and copper gives us blue. Combinations of these and other metals produce the range of colors you see in a professional fireworks display.”
Today’s fireworks also use delay mechanisms to create different shapes. The next big development might be creating more environmentally friendly fireworks by swapping compressed air for explosives.
No matter what colors or shapes light up the night sky, or where the fireworks were purchased or what type they are, there’s a good chance that Ding Yan Zhong — who goes by Mr. Ding — is behind them. He’s the founder of Shanghai Huayang and Firstrans International, two companies that manufacture and deliver fireworks. Until recently, no one knew much about the full scope of his global fireworks empire.
Note: Everything from this point forward is a very small slice of a very good investigation by Damian Paletta and Emily Rauhala of the Washington Post.
The odd story of Mr. Ding’s quiet ascent begins on Valentine’s Day in 2008, when 20 warehouses of a competitor’s fireworks inexplicably exploded during the night. Citing the dangerous incident, the Chinese government rolled out strict regulations about who could make — and, crucially, ship — fireworks.
When the dust settled, only three companies were allowed to transport fireworks on container ships. Mr. Ding was the only fireworks producer who was authorized to ship fireworks from Shanghai to the United States. Coupled with the mysterious explosion, this struck plenty of people as…strange. From the Post:
His property was very basic and lacked paved roads, a dangerous omission when transporting explosives, the person said. The dirt road could become unnavigable when it rained. And it rained a lot.
Today, 70% of Chinese fireworks in America come from Mr. Ding’s factories.
Behind the scenes, competitors say they were bullied and threatened out of the race for American business. As Mr. Ding’s fireworks business expanded, he pushed fulfillment partners out of business, too. With nine barges, he can now ship containers of fireworks upriver to Shanghai and straight across the Pacific, reaping additional profits along the way.
Without competition, prices soared. American importers were used to spending around $5,000 to ship a single container of fireworks – a cost that quickly ballooned to $8,000, $15,000 or even $20,000 depending on how sophisticated the fireworks were. In 2018, shipping containers carrying millions of pounds of Fourth of July fireworks docked in California after journeying across the Pacific. Virtually all the profits went back to Mr. Ding.
Still, people paid. The thought of a Fourth of July celebration with no fireworks was so appalling that practically no one pushed back out of fear that Mr. Ding would simply cut off their access. Fears of retribution ran so deep that the Post struggled to get people to talk on the record. The point isn’t that global trade is bad; it’s that companies that gain too much power seem likely to abuse it.
And the arrangement seems likely to continue. Americans celebrate Independence Day with around $1 billion worth of fireworks each year. The American Pyrotechnic Association lobbies for more fireworks, to “Preserve and Promote an American Tradition!”
Despite the rain of unholy chemicals, despite the fact that fireworks scare cats and dogs (and some people, including me!), despite the dark undercurrent of corporate manipulation that shapes the industry, we shoot them off and marvel at the spectacle, year after year after year.
Something else
My first byline since going freelance went up on Friday! For Mixmag, I wrote about Big Little Lies and the revelation that Gordon Klein is a Massive Attack fan.
I’ve got some other fun stuff in the works, so keep an eye out for more in the coming weeks.
One more thing
Summerhouse (the indie magazine I’m starting up) got a really nice shoutout in Delia Cai’s newsletter, Deez Links. Sign up for Deez Links, and then be sure to sign up for Summerhouse’s newsletter as well!
Our first newsletter goes out on July 12, and we’re kicking things off with a surprise download I’ll reveal next week. V mysterious! Stay tuned!