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Lantern Festival: A brief overview
The first full moon of every lunar new year falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. This day is also known as the Lantern Festival in China. It marks the official end to the two-week Spring Festival celebration. On today's China Cool, we take a look at the legends and customs that illuminate the true meaning of the Lantern Festival.
As the name "Lantern Festival" suggests, lanterns play a leading role in the celebration. As the first full moon of the new year rises, people come out to enjoy the spectacle of thousands of colorful lanterns, blazing in the night.
These glowing works of art cover a diverse range of themes, from nature to folklore, from history to ancient wisdom. The customs of lighting a lantern began in the Han Dynasty,some two thousand years ago. Later, in the Tang Dynasty, folk rituals were represented in more jovial and widespread forms, with lanterns hanging from imperial palaces to pedestrian districts. It made for a grand scene which inspired lasting pieces of poetry.
The Song Dynasty lengthened the celebration to five days, while the Ming Dynasty, tacked on another five days to create the longest lantern festival in Chinese history. In the Qing Dynasty, pyrotechnic shows accompanied the lantern displays.
Lantern Festival is also about solving riddles. In the Song Dynasty, local people wrote riddles onto lanterns for visitors to guess for fun. These were later handed down as a kind of brain teaser, enjoyed by people from all walks of society.
