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Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st
lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as
the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great
significance.
This day's important activity 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 15th day of the 1st lunar
month, so he ordered to light 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" is an essential part of the
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 owners to check their
answer. If they are right, they will get a little gift. 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.
People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also
called the "Yuanxiao Festival." Yuanxiao
also has another
name, tangyuan. 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.
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 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.
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