Quote Originally Posted by pipokun
It is your distortion to say that

the Japanese think such obviously international things are unique to Japan, such as the four seasons and fireworks. It is odd to me that the Japanese think such obviously international things are unique to Japan, such as the four seasons and fireworks.

The wiki article is just the history of it in Japan.
The Wikipedia article about fireworks in English (here) has the history in China and the US, the a list of usages in Britain, the US, the New Year worldwide, India and Hong Kong. However, the Japanese version, which is even longer than the English version (which certainly reflects the interest of Japanese people in that matter), only has a brief mention of fireworks being first introduced to Europe in the 13th century. There is not a single mention of the modern usage outside Japan. There is no mention of the New Year tradition in all Western countries, including Russia and Latin America, no mention of India, Hong Kong or whatever.

I don't ask for a detailed explanation for every country, but in such a long and detailed article, with more than a full screen for the "History in Japan" and another full screen for the list of major Japanese fireworks, they could have at last had one line mentioning that fireworks are common for the New Year in many countries around the world.