The grand Lantern Festival

Huiping Song, Contributor

The Chinese Lantern Festival which marks the end of celebrations of the Chinese New Year took place last Thursday. The following article was prepared by the Embassy of the People's Republic of China to explain some of the finer points of the festival.

Lantern Festival, also called Yuan Xiao Festival, falls on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, usually in February or early March in the Gregorian calendar, marking the end of the celebration of the Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year).

As far back as the West Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25) it had become a festival with great significance. 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 15th day of the first lunar month, so he ordered that lanterns be lit in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day.

Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among ordinary people and its influence expanded from the central plains to all of China. Today, the Lantern Festival is still held each year around the country.

In the festival, the important activity is to watch lanterns. In early times, a few days before the festival, people began gathering oiled paper, silk cloth, bamboo sticks and flowers to make all shapes of lantern. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes, related to folklore, holiday customs or lucky mascots are hung in the streets with the bright moon illuminating the dark sky, which attracts countless visitors. Children holding self-made or store-bought lanterns stroll in the streets, extremely excited. Across China, the festival is celebrated in many different styles. In the north, the combination of the ice and snow with coloured lights, carvings, designs and special scenery yield a spectacular winter paradise. In places near water, people put lotus lanterns in the river to let them flow down the stream, carrying the loss for the relatives passed away.

Just like China's other traditional holidays, the festival also has its own special food - Yuan Xiao, or rice dumplings which are small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, or sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. People eat Yuan Xiao on this day. That's why the festival is also called Yuan Xiao Festival. Yuan Xiao also has another name, Tang Yuan. As it is always round and white, Yuan Xiao represents the moon on the night of the festival. What's more, Tang Yuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with "tuan yuan" meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.

'Guessing Lantern Riddles' is a special word-game played by the Chinese people. The traditional riddles were written on lanterns. Today, people write the riddles on a piece of paper and glue them to the lanterns. If viewers have solutions to them, they can pull out the paper and check the answers with riddle creators. If correct, they will get a small prize. The activity emerged during people's enjoyment of lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all social strata.

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