Happening on the fifteenth day of the primary lunar month (February 5 this yr), the occasion, referred to as Yuan Xiao Jie in Mandarin Chinese, is taken into account the right ending to the weeks-long Lunar New Year preparations and celebrations.
The Lantern Festival celebrates the primary full moon of the yr — therefore the title (Yuan means the start. Xiao means evening).
On at the present time, individuals mild lanterns to represent driving out darkness and bringing hope to the approaching yr.
The lanterns symbolize driving out darkness and bringing hope to a brand new yr.
Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/AP
It’s mentioned that the custom gained reputation throughout China’s Han Dynasty some 2,000 years in the past.
Revelers would attend a neighborhood truthful to admire fireworks, watch performances, view lanterns and clear up riddles written on connected notes.
Lantern riddles have developed over time. Here’s a easy one:
When you draw it, it is spherical.
When you write it, it is rectangular.
It’s quick in winter.
It’s lengthy in summer season.
The reply is solar — 日 in Chinese.
Back within the day, the Lantern Festival was one of many uncommon occasions of the yr when single ladies and boys could be allowed to satisfy one another, everybody gathering underneath rows of lanterns. That’s why some have even dubbed it Chinese Valentine’s Day.
The romantic competition has been properly documented in historic literature, together with “Journey to the West” and “Dream of the Red Chamber,” and has since impressed numerous well-known poems.
Lantern Festival traditions
Da tie hua, or hit iron flower, is a Lantern Festival custom. A blacksmith throws molten iron to create a bathe of sparks.
Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images
Today, the Lantern Festival is noticed in communities worldwide and celebrations fluctuate considerably. Many cities placed on grand lantern exhibitions and parades to mark the competition.
Putian in China’s Fujian province claims to have the longest Lantern Festival celebration within the nation, with some saying it is thought of extra necessary than the precise Lunar New Year competition.
Festivities final almost three weeks and embody a deity parade, fireplace pit leaping and loads of conventional theater and music performances.
In Hebei’s Nuanquan city, residents placed on a spectacular “firework” present by throwing molten iron towards a chilly stone metropolis wall to create sparks.
The centuries-old customized, dashuhua or da tie hua (translated as hit tree flower or hit iron flower) has been acknowledged as intangible cultural heritage by the Chinese authorities. It was additionally one of many key performances on the Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony in 2022.
Held yearly within the metropolis of Yanshui, 1000’s of daredevils in helmets and fire-retardant clothes convey a sequence of launch towers filled with small rocket fireworks that resemble beehives into the slim streets.
Once lit, the towers shoot a whole lot and 1000’s of rockets in numerous instructions, leading to a dramatic and sometimes terrifying scene.
Romance and rice balls
Tangyuan is a well-liked Lantern Festival snack.
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No matter how massive, small or harmful your Lantern Festival celebration is, you may by no means go flawed with a bowl of spherical and candy glutinous rice balls, known as tangyuan, as you admire the total moon.
The spherical motifs symbolize the reunion and wholeness of households.
Other distinctive celebrations could be discovered all through Asia to mark the primary full moon of the lunar yr.
Women write their contact information on the tangerines earlier than tossing them into the river. Men then fish the tangerines out of the water, hoping to satisfy their future companions.
In South Korea, it is referred to as Daeboreum (the Great Full Moon). Many Koreans down a shot of chilled rice wine and eat various kinds of nuts, grains and dried greens. In addition to lighting lanterns, some additionally take a hike and make a bonfire.
Source web site: www.cnn.com
