ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Chinese Festivals | Lantern Festival

Updated on January 15, 2013

Lantern Festival is One of Many Chinese Festivals

With all the Chinese Festivals on the yearly calendar, it's a wonder there's any work done here. Lantern Festival marks the end of New Year festivities and is colourful and noisy, with bright red lanterns, fireworks, garlands and great food. The Lantern Festival is known in China as Shang Yuan Festival or Yuan Xiao Jie. Some Chinese refer to it as Little New Year as it marks the end of the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month, and is a gazetted public holiday in China.

Image: Wikimedia | Lens Updated: January 16th, 2013 @ 5:20 am Beijing time.

There's Also Another Lantern Festival Held in Mid-Autumn

This lens is about the ending of Spring Festival on 15th day of the 1st lunar calendar month.

Chinese Lantern Festival

... dates back to the Han Dynasty

2008 Taiwan Lantern Festival
2008 Taiwan Lantern Festival

Read About Chinese Lantern Festival on Wikipedia

Colourful festival in Chinese history marking end of Spring Festival...

The Lantern Festival or Yuan Xiao Festival or Shang Yuan Festival in China or Chap Goh Meh Festival in Malaysia and Singapore or "Tet Thurng Nguyên" or "Tet Nguyên Tiêu" in Vietnam; is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year in the Chinese calendar, the last day of the Lunar Chinese New Year celebration. It is not to be confused with the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is sometimes also known as the "Lantern Festival" in locations such as Singapore, Malaysia. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles on the lanterns. It officially ends the Chinese New Year celebrations.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

The Jade Emperor
The Jade Emperor

The Ancient Legend of Chinese Lantern Festival!

The "Heavenly Jade Emperor" became angry and sought vengeance...

According to an ancient Chinese legend, the "Heavenly Jade Emperor" became angry and wanted to destroy a town on earth when his favourite bird was accidentally killed by a hunter. A fairy heard of this, and warned the people to light lanterns all over the town on that appointed day. All the people in the town followed the instructions of the fairy.

The emperor looked down on the town from the sky and it appeared that it was ablaze! He was satisfied and left. From that day on, people celebrated the anniversary of their deliverance by carrying lanterns through the streets on the night of the first full moon of the year.

Image Source: Public Domain

Buying Lucky Trinkets on Sale in Fucheng, Haikou - People buying trinkets to celebrate Lantern Festival, February 2006...

Fucheng (Haikou) Lantern Festival Trinkets
Fucheng (Haikou) Lantern Festival Trinkets

Each year, at the end of Spring Festival, the people of the Fucheng corner of Haikou celebrate Lantern Festival with family and friends. A huge area is cordoned off from regular traffic, and thousands of people get together to enjoy an evening meal. Afterwards, they roam around the streets meeting old friends and exchanging fluorescent garlands and hand out trinkets to the children. All this happens in a warm community spirit, underneath the colourful glow of the paper lanterns. It is a great way for the community to get together and enjoy themselves prior to going back to their normal lives at the end of Spring Festival.

Tangyuan is a Traditional Food For Lantern Festival - These small balls of sweetness are made from glutinous rice flour...

Home made Tangyuan, a typical Chinese food.
Home made Tangyuan, a typical Chinese food.

Image: Public Domain.

Tangyuan rice balls are traditionally eaten during lantern Festival. They are made from glutinous rice flour, are of various sizes, and are sometimes filled with sesame paste, red bean paste, chopped peanuts and sugar or rock candy made from sugar cane.

What Are The Origins of Chinese Lantern Festival?

Chinese Lantern Festival Crowd in Fucheng
Chinese Lantern Festival Crowd in Fucheng

Chinese Lantern Festival is held on the 15th day of the first month of the Lunar calendar. Lantern Festival is also known as Shang Yuan Festival, or Yuan Night. There are many theories about the origin of the Chinese Lantern Festival, but these three theories are the most commonly held:

Lantern Festival Origins

1. The Lantern Festival was proclaimed by the Han Emperor, Wudi, in 104 BCE. It was to be an important celebration that would last through the night.

2. The people celebrated the Lantern Festival on the first full moon night of the year also called the "Shang Yuan Festival";

3. The Lantern Festival originated from the "Torch Festival". The Han people in the countryside hold aloft torches to drive out the worm beast, and they hope that they can reduce pests and have a good harvest.

Did you enjoy reading about Chinese Lantern Festival? Leave your comments and questions below. Please take the time to rate this lens a "thumbs up" at the top LH corner of the page. If you enjoyed it, you may care to mark it as a favourite as well. Lensmasters, if you review, rate and comment on any of my lenses, I will do the same for you.

Not a Squidoo member yet? You're missing out on all the fun. Squidoo is free to join and use, and you can even make some money for your favourite charity, our even for yourself (gasp). Go ahead, make my day and make your first lens now.

Image: Greekgeek


working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)