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Lantern Festival & first full moon after Chinese New Year

china.org.cn / chinagate.cn, February 10, 2017 Adjust font size:

Editor's note: The traditional Chinese Lantern Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month under the Chinese lunar calendar. People eat Yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day to celebrate the first full moon after the Chinese New Year. As the Lantern Festival marks the final day of the New Year celebrations, people may feel reluctant to say goodbye to the festival and will surely head for a new start with fresh hopes. Here, China.org.cn shares with you how people celebrate the traditional festival which falls on Feb. 11 this year.

Watching lanterns

One of the Lantern Festival's important activities is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. So he ordered the lighting of lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.

Till today, the Lantern Festival is still held each year around the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the streets - extremely excited.

Guessing lantern riddles

Guessing lantern riddles is an essential part of the Lantern Festival. Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the riddles, they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owner to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little gift. The activity emerged during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular across the whole social strata.

Eating yuanxiao

People eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so the Lantern Festival is also called the Yuanxiao Festival. The name of yuanxiao is used in northern China and literally means "first evening," being the first full moon after the Chinese lunar New Year. Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan, which is used in southern China. It is small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What's more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with "tuanyuan,” meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.

Dragon dance

During the daytime of the Lantern Festival, performances such as a dragon dance, a lion dance, a land boat dance, a yangge dance, walking on stilts and beating drums while dancing will be staged. In the night, except for magnificent lanterns, fireworks provide a beautiful scene. Most families spare some fireworks from the Spring Festival and let them off in the Lantern Festival. Some local governments will even organize a fireworks party. On the night when the first full moon enters the New Year, people become really intoxicated by the imposing fireworks and bright moon in the sky.