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The Lantern Festival is the 15th of the 1st lunar month, which is one of the big festivals in China and other Asian. The Lantern Festival is derived from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220),
Emperor Wu (汉武帝 — hàn wǔ dì) respected and advocated the Buddhism. The emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha’s body on the 15th day of the first lunar month. Therefore, emperor Wu designated this day as a worship day for the god of heaven in China ancient time, Taiyi (太一神 — tài yī shén). He made people lighting candles and hang up lanterns in temples.
Another legend about the festival is that there were unrest and intense power play during the early time of the Han Dynasty.
After the unrest, the new emperor Wen (Wu’s grandpa,179 BC-AD 157) ask people light candles and lanterns to celebrate the return of peace, it known as 鬧元宵(nào yuán xiāo).
Since that, people celebrate the festival each year around the country, they shape lanterns into various shapes and sizes hanging in the streets, light the darkness and worship for a good harvest and welcome the coming of spring.
“Guessing lantern riddles” is a special custom of the Festival. people 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 the answers are correct, 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 glutinous rice ball called yuan xiao, is made of glutinous rice with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar. It tastes yummy and sweet, which means reunion and completeness.
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. (https://chinesenewyear.net/lantern-festival/)
There are some activities in Taiwan, you can see more information as follow links:
