As one of the important traditional festivals in China, the Lantern Festival has a history of more than 2,000 years. Unlike other traditional festivals that emphasize "family reunion", the Lantern Festival emphasizes "universal celebration", and its liveliness can be called the "carnival" of the Chinese nation. On this day, people enjoy the lanterns, guess the riddles, eat the Lantern Festival, and visit the temple fairs.
The 15th Lantern Festival of the First Month,
Do you remember these traditions?
Eat the Lantern
Eating the Lantern on the fifteenth day of the first month is a long-standing custom. People eat tangyuan during the Lantern Festival, which actually means missing their relatives and longing for reunion.
Noisy flower lights
Flower lanterns began in the Western Han Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. On the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, at the end of the street, red lights are hung high, and all kinds of flower lights are all kinds.
Play with dragon lights
Chinese is a descendant of the dragon. The dragon is a Chinese totem. The fifteenth day of the first month plays with the dragon lantern, which represents a kind of momentum, a year of red fire, and the spirit is doubled!
Stilts
Stilt walking, commonly known as "tie the foot", "tie the foot high", "walk high leg", is a popular folk performance of a mass skill performance, the form is lively and diverse, deeply loved by the masses.
Guess the riddle
Riddles inspire wisdom and interest. Every Lantern Festival, many places will play a riddle of lights, hoping that this year will be safe and joyful.
The Lantern Festival carries people's desire to pursue happiness,
Full of good wishes for the new year.
There are also some you may not know
Lantern Festival trivia
1 Ancient Valentine's Day
The phrase "the moon is on the willow tip, and the man is about after dusk" refers to this day.
Young girls in traditional societies are not allowed to go out and move freely, but they can go out to play together during the festival. Many unmarried men and women can also find their sweethearts by the way through the flower lanterns, so the Lantern Festival has also created countless good relationships and beautiful families, and there are also many poems that express their admiration through the Lantern Festival.
The multitudes looked for him a thousand times.
Looking back,
But the man was,
The lights are dimmed.
——Xin Zhiyi, "The Qingyu Case. New Year's Eve》
2Why is the 15th day of the first month called the "Lantern Festival"?
The Lantern Festival originated in the Han Dynasty and is said to have been set up for "Pinglu" during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han. In 180 BC, the chancellors Zhou Bo and Chen Ping swept away the Lü family's power and established Liu Heng, the Emperor wen of Han, on the throne. Because the day on which Emperor Wendi of Han ascended the throne was the fifteenth day of the first month, it was worth commemorating, so Liu Heng forgave the world and enjoyed himself with the people. In the future, every night on this day, the emperor would go out of the palace to play, put on the lights, and have fun with the people to show celebration.
Because at that time, people still called the first month "January" and the night "supper", so it was called "Lantern Festival". Later, when Sima Qian founded the Taichu Calendar, he designated the Lantern Festival as a major festival.
"When the stars and moons are in the sky, there are ten thousand candles burning, and there are two lanterns in the heavens on earth." On the night of the Lantern Festival, the streets and alleys are illuminated, and people admire the flower lanterns and guess the riddles, which will push the celebrations that continue from Chinese New Year's Eve to another climax and become a custom that has been passed down from generation to generation.
3 Lantern and Tangyuan, can you tell the difference?
Lantern and Tangyuan are not the same species
Tangyuan is wrapped like dumplings
The Lantern is made of filling and glutinous rice flour
Let's take a look at these three GIFs
The north "rolls" the Lantern
Southern "wrapped" tangyuan
"Spring to the human world is like jade, and the lamp burns the moon and the next month is like silver."
This is also called the traditional festival of Shangyuan Festival and Spring Lantern Festival
Pinning on Chinese's desire for reunion and happiness
Remember to eat a bowl of tangyuan, may people and moon be reunited twice!
Source Xinhua News Agency, Efficient Reading
New media matrix of Chongzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League