Fireworks are enjoyed by people all over the world. In Japan, fireworks makers have for centuries been devoting their energies to creating exquisitely beautiful nighttime displays, long before the nation's engineers impressed the world with their appliances and consumer electronics.

Fireworks festivals are a favorite summer pastime for Japanese, both young and old. Every year, some 7,000 festivals are held around the nation. There are also a full range of small, hand-held fireworks that can be bought at toy shops and enjoyed at home, such as sparklers, torches, firecrackers, and rockets.

Japan used to be a major exporter of fireworks, shipping around 1.5 billion yen (13 million U.S. dollars at 115 yen to the dollar) worth of fireworks each year to foreign countries until the mid-1980s. Recently, though, annual exports have fallen to about 100 million yen (870,000 dollars). The decline is due partly to the higher value of the yen, which has cut into the profits of fireworks makers, and also to the rise of fireworks made in China. Still, in 1997, some 7.1 billion yen's worth of fireworks were manufactured in Japan.

Japan's expertise in fireworks production is still much sought after all over the world, moreover, and fireworks makers are frequently invited to display their skills at festivals in other countries.

The history of fireworks in Japan is relatively new, compared to some other countries. It was in the late sixteenth century that fireworks were first brought to Japan, along with firearms, by the Portuguese.

In the beginning, they were enjoyed mainly by the shogun and other feudal leaders, but eventually they were tailored for the amusement of common people as well. Firework displays became particularly popular in what is now Tokyo during the eighteenth century. The most notable fireworks event was an annual festival along the banks of the Sumida River, where professional fireworks manufacturers competed with one another to put on spectacular nighttime displays.

Although fireworks displays were occasionally banned during the Edo period because they posed a fire threat, manufacturers continued their efforts to produce better fireworks.

Major technological breakthroughs came in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, making Japanese fireworks famous around the world. Japanese manufacturers built fireworks that change colors twice or even three times during a single launch. This became possible when Japan's isolationist policy was overturned, allowing new materials to be imported, such as aluminum and strontium. These new substances enabled manufacturers to create much brighter and more colorful fireworks.

Photo: Fireworks light up the sky behind a pagota in Asakusa, Tokyo. (Jiji)