Tomorrow(Feb 11,2017) comes to the spectacle that fascinates every Chinese, Lantern Festival. Then what is it about this festival that’s so fascinating?
The Lantern Festival is a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar Chinese calendar. It marks the final day of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations and usually falls on some day in February or March in the Gregorian calendar.
During the Lantern Festival, people will go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles on the lanterns(Cai Deng Mi).If someone thinks they have the right answer, they can pull the riddle off and go to the lantern owner to check their answer. If the answer is right, there is usually a small gift as a prize.
Besides riddle guessing, lion dancing is also fancied by Chinese.
The lion dance requires two highly-trained performers in a lion suit. One acts as the head and forelegs, and the other the back and rear legs. Under the guidance of a choreographer, the “lion” dances to the beat of a drum, gong, and cymbals. Sometimes they jump, roll, and do difficult acts such as walking on stilts.
Eating Tangyuan, also called Yuanxiao, is also a very important custom of the Lantern Festival.
Tangyuan is ball-shaped stuffed dumpling and is pronounced similarly to the Tuanyuan which means the whole family gathering together happily, so eating Tangyuan on the Lantern Festival is a way for Chinese people to express their best wishes for their family and their future lives.
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