The lantern festival is known as the Shangyuan Festival, or the New Lunar Festival. It's a Chinese traditional festive festival that falls on the sixth day of the Chinese new year. It's celebrated during the third month of the lunar calendar and involves activities all over China. The festival is not really associated with any particular religious tradition but is instead thought to have origins in the Buddhist teachings of Buddha. It's celebrated at the same time each year, on the exact day just before the new moon.

 

The event is much celebrated in many areas of China, outside of the traditional lunar circle area of northeast China. In Gansu Province, for example, the city of Xi'an has been preparing for the lantern festival for several months, with a large number of decorations and workshops all lined up along the banks of the Huangpu River. The Huangpu River in east China is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. But along the three kilometers of its banks, you'll find a small village of Xiongan County that has been preparing for the lantern festival for centuries.

 

The lantern festival began in the third century, as indicated by the legend. Legend has it that the moon was too dark to see people under the tree tops, so the people climbed up and lit twigs on the branches of the trees. When the light reached the people on the branches, they were delighted to find that it was the spirits of the dead that had been hanging around the twigs. Soon, lanterns began to be used as tools for communication. Some tribes would use them to signal when there were warriors lurking in their way. As the New Kingdom spread into the regions surrounding Nanking (the modern Zambia), the use of lanterns became more widespread.

Chinese New Year - The Lantern Festival

 

In many areas of China, the lanterns used in the lantern festival are long, thin devices, hung from poles. They may be of one or two meters in length and made of bamboo, reeds, or grass. Their colors might include red, orange, or blue. The tradition of putting these lanterns up on the 15th day of the lunar calendar was started by the Man Kangxi (Ming Dynasty), who banned the previous calendar system.

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The lantern festival in China is also celebrated as the new year's parading. In ancient times, people would ride on horses, follow a chariot, and perform dances to welcome the new year. In some areas, they even carried umbrellas to protect them from the sun. But along with the joyous mood came the fact that people didn't have much money, so the chariot procession was also a form of theft - someone got away with several Chinese coins!

 

By the time the early half of the 20th century, the Chinese New Year had fallen by the wayside, but the lantern festival held on for another five years before fading away into oblivion. It was revived again in the 1920s, when the communist government wanted to boost the national economy. This time around, instead of colorful lanterns, paper lanterns were used. They only had 12 lamps, each representing one month of the Chinese new year, which was then celebrated with great parades.

 

As it turned out, paper lanterns are not really the preferred method of burning during the Chinese New Year. Firecrackers were the better choice, given that they were widely available and easy to bring home. Firecrackers are also easier to make and can be made with basic ingredients found at home. That is why paper lanterns and firecrackers are not the choice of Chinese when it comes to celebrating the lantern festival.

 

The most common form of Chinese lanterns used during the Chinese New Year festival are the ones made of paper or bamboo. However, even these Chinese New Year lanterns are no match for the great work put into making ceremonial Chinese lanterns. Paper lanterns, which are made for the festival only, are not really made with as much care or detail as the other types. This is why the best lanterns are made with painstaking detail, using traditional Chinese ink and a brush.

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