Lantern Festival (traditional Chinese festival)
Lantern Festival, one of the traditional festivals in China, also known as Shangyuan Festival, Little First Moon, Yuanxi, or Lantern Festival, takes place on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month every year.
The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar. The ancients called "night" as "xiao". The fifteenth day of the first month is the first full moon night in the year. According to Taoism "Sanyuan", the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is also called the "Shangyuan Festival". The Lantern Festival custom has been dominated by the warm and festive lantern viewing custom since ancient times.
The formation of the Lantern Festival has a long process, which is rooted in the folk custom of turning on the lights and praying for blessings. According to general information and folklore, the fifteenth day of the first month has been taken seriously in the Western Han Dynasty, but the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month was really regarded as a national folk festival after the Han and Wei Dynasties. The rise of the custom of lighting lanterns on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is also related to the spread of Buddhism to the east. Buddhism flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and officials and people generally "lit lanterns to worship Buddha" on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and Buddhist lights spread throughout the people. statutory matter.
The Lantern Festival is one of the traditional festivals in China. The Lantern Festival mainly includes a series of traditional folk activities such as viewing lanterns, eating glutinous rice balls, guessing lantern riddles, and setting off fireworks. In addition, many local Lantern Festivals also add traditional folk performances such as dragon lanterns, lion dances, stilt walking, dry boat rowing, Yangko twisting, and Taiping drums. In June 2008, the Lantern Festival was selected into the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage.
