Children learn how to make yuanxiao dumplings at a residential community in the eastern city of Hefei yesterday, a traditional food popular in China during today’s Lantern Festival. [Xinhua]

Small round dumplings flavored with rose petals have appeared in China’s bakeries as people struggle to please both families and lovers on Valentine’s Day today.

The imported celebration of Valentine’s Day coincides this year with the traditional Lantern Festival, which dates back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) and marks the end of Lunar New Year festivities. The festival is usually celebrated with displays of red lanterns and by eating sweet rice dumplings — yuanxiao — at home with the family.

Chinese parents looking forward to the festival hope daughters and sons will stay at home with them on that day, said Yang Jianhua of the Zhejiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.

But this year, many younger family members may have a different idea and are planning to spend Valentine’s Day with other loved ones, just the two of them, Yang said.

Across the country, young people have been juggling with the competing claims of tradition and romance.

“Choosing between the two festivals is like choosing who to save if your mother and lover fall into the water at the same time,” was one online comment.

“I’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day with my girlfriend this year in the hope that we will spend future Lantern Festivals together, for the rest of our lives,” Li Shuai, 27, said. His colleagues, on the other hand, have all chosen to have the traditional dumplings with their families.

“Filial piety always comes first for Chinese people. I’ll stay at home on Friday for the Lantern Festival, then spend a romantic weekend with my boyfriend,” said Chen Qin.

But there can be problems.

“I broke up with my girlfriend because she felt dumped when I decided to take my mom out instead,” said office worker Cai Zhifeng.

Valentine’s Day often falls during Chinese New Year holidays. The Lantern Festival is on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the first full moon of the year, and the end of the most important season for family reunions.

The imported holiday spurs discounts at department stores and helps hotels, restaurants, travel agencies and florists to prosper, but it also triggers heated discussion on Western and Eastern culture clashes.

“I didn’t understand why my ex-girlfriend cared about a foreign festival so much, just like she found it strange that I valued an ancient tradition,” said Cai.

The Lantern Festival last coincided with Valentine’s Day in 1995, at a time when many Chinese were still too conservative to talk about love openly, and Valentine’s Day was a minor curiosity.

But in the past two decades it’s more than just attitudes that have changed, and many Western festivals are popular among old and young alike.

Wu Bingan, honorary chairman of the China Folklore Society, said that while most Chinese holidays feature family reunions and honoring one’s ancestors, the Lantern Festival has been an occasion for taking part in public events since ancient times.

“Young women would be chaperoned into the streets during the festival, dancing, singing and possibly meeting their future husbands.”

Zhou Changwen will combine both traditions when he flies home to the northwestern city of Xi’an with his girlfriend. “We’ll watch the lantern show with my parents. It’ll be the first time she meets my family.”

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