No matter how many Lunar New Year celebrations you spend in China those first explosions always catch you unawares. They rip the cold air and shatter the pollution that hangs in clouds around the capital, echoing from block to block.

The children couldn't stop themselves giggling at this tall jittery foreigner jumping every time a cracker went off. Benched out near the park close to my home in west Beijing I had stopped to watch an animated group of festive season revellers light up a succession of fat red squibs in a warm-up for the big day. A small hand belonging to a chubby faced young girl took mine in an effort to calm me. Her pearl black eyes said ‘Don't be afraid, it's part of the way things are in China.' Amen to that. The fact that I had read somewhere that each family is allowed to buy around 30kgs of fireworks did nothing to iron out my nerve ends - that's enough explosives to blow up a bridge for goodness sake.

I still had the image of the adjacent street-side fireworks vendor in my head, leaning over to serve a customer, table groaning with rockets, streams of squibs, and an assortment of items that looked like mortar shells decorated with red crepe paper. He had a cigarette in his mouth, hot ash inches away from what could have been a very messy sidewalk, and an Alfred E Newman "What me worried?" look on his face. Damn that was one cool dude.

In my early China days the only lunar connection I could make was that this was a festival reserved for lunatics - a chaotic time of mega noise and mass migration. But over the years I have come to realise it's all about family and down on ground zero getting in on the action is the only way to go.

Although the climax of celebrations is jammed into two days, determined by the lunar calendar, the New Year season itself lasts from the mid-twelfth month of the previous year to the middle of the first month in the New Year and is probably the longest festive season of any culture worldwide.

I was privileged to celebrate Lunar New Year's eve with some Chinese friends in downtown Beijing. Their family members had made the trek from Liaoning Province in a reversal migration to the parents home. Most people left the city for far-off provinces. Still having the residues of excessive Christmas and January 1 New Year celebrations lingering in my aura, I sucked it up and prepared for a night of revelry. The evening supper was a feast that succumbed to an invasion of flashing chopsticks, the most popular course being jiaozi, pork dumplings boiled in water. Forget about the frozen supermarket variety, these were freshly made and definitely worth writing home about - some kindly soul even took pity on this vegetarian and made me my own special batch, which I guarded with my life.

After supper people broke off into groups to play cards, surf the net, or watch the CCTV music New Year special. This show is said to be the single most watched TV program on the planet. It's glitz and glam, smoke and mirrors, burnished presenters and hour after hour of every form of entertainment possible, with some you may have thought not possible. Although many trendy couples now head out to restaurants for the festivities all seem to find their way back home for the TV show.

The excitement built as midnight approached with everyone heading downstairs "armed" with bags of fireworks and the children's sleepy eyes sprang to life. A countdown sounded courtesy of a very vocal neighbor and then all hell broke loose and Armageddon was upon us.

Those who didn't come down to the public squares and courtyards watched from their balconies as Beijing erupted. Deep booming thunderflashes, rainbow rockets, and the ripping pops of strung-out squibs drove the children delirious and brought bright smiles to tired old faces. The legendary evil New Year spirit Nian was not only scared off, rumor has it with all this firepower he won't be back next year.

Talking was impossible, so I held my ears and tried not to let my mind drift back to other explosions and not-so-celebratory times.

By the time things had calmed down to a panic it was too late to head home, so I stayed over.

Waking up the next morning to the smell of cordite - nothing quite like it. Giggling young voices roused a wasted household into life. I was just in time to see the children being given cash gifts placed in red and gold envelopes by their parents, an age-old tradition. It was then time to begin visiting relatives and neighbors, exchange small gifts in the shape of the zodiac animal symbolizing the year and use the day to smooth over any bad blood from the past year. I stayed behind and spoke to one of the aunts about the many traditional precautions taken to ensure the New Year would bring good fortune. There was to be no sweeping less the good luck was swept away with the dirt, no dishes were to be broken, and all debt had to be settled before the New Year began.

I said my farewells, thinking about the big-bang theory, dumplings, tradition and family on the way home. The explosions had started again. I passed the fireworks vendor and thought, what the hell. If you cant beat 'em, join 'em. "Give me 30 kgs worth please."