Sun 29 Jan 2006
Dreams Blown Sky High
Posted by Mark Baker under 2006 Trip to China , Anhai, Jinjiang , Chinese New Year , Fujian Province[2] Comments
We learned today of an explosion in a nearby home that killed one person and severely injured another, the parents of a young child.
It seems this couple was trying to build, or use, a home-made helium balloon-filling machine. One version of the story said they were even trying to produce the helium themselves. We’re also not sure if they were doing this just for fun–for their child or for the Chinese New Year celebration–or whether this was their new business idea: sell helium filled balloons on the streets.
Tragic, and it makes me want to walk by any open doorways here even faster than I felt compelled to already.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
[...] I wrote a post back in January about a tragic death in Anhai that could have been avoided (with better safety practices and “common sense”) when a couple was trying to rig up their own home-grown helium balloon-filling machine. (And I’ve learned that there is a thriving market for them here: when school lets out each day, several helium balloon vendors, toy vendors, snack vendors, and so on are waiting to catch the kids’ attention with hopes that the adult picking them up will give in to the youngsters requests, squeals, whines, tantrums, or whatever.) [...]
March 9th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Are you sure that it is helium? In Xi’an in 2000 there were plenty of balloon vendors on the streets during ChunJie. However, the tanks were filled with hydrogen, not helium. Everyone had a great time attaching firecrackers to the strings for the balloons, letting them go, and watching the resulting explosions once the crackers came into contact with the hydrogen gas in the balloons. For some reason the vendors got nervous whenever a smoker came near their tanks….