#saw it in person once at a dragon boat festival and it was… just unreal

[fatfemmefreaquency]

fwiw this is also a traditional art form (called Da Shuhua) in some regions of china—although usually the performers don’t wear protective gear (there are fewer and fewer people who learn this art form/ blacksmithing skill because of how dangerous it is)

its a cheaper alternative to expensive fireworks and is a tradition passed down by some blacksmiths for celebration among the working class (who couldn’t afford expensive fireworks but could afford to collect waste metal and give it to blacksmiths before festivals)

one blacksmith holds molten iron in a vessel and the other uses an implement to scatter the iron across either water or cold bricks which creates the “iron flowers” or petal/ leaf shaped scatters of light & metal that the art is named for

so there’s not just science at play here—there’s technology, culture, and art