The Lantern Festival, also known as shangyuan festival, small new moon, new year's eve or lantern festival, is the first important festival after the Spring Festival, and is one of the traditional festivals of Chinese people in China and the Chinese cultural circle in China and overseas. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar, and the ancients called the night "supper", so the fifteenth day of the first full moon of the year is called the Lantern Festival.
Festival introduction
LANTERN FESTIVAL
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 flower lanterns, eating tangyuan, guessing lantern riddles, and setting off fireworks. In addition, many local Lantern Festivals have also added traditional folk performances such as dragon lanterns, lion dances, stilt walking, rowing dry boats, twisting rice songs, and playing Taiping drums. In June 2008, the Lantern Festival was selected into the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage.
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Eat the Lantern
1
Lantern as a food, in China has a long history. The northern "rolling" Lantern festival and the southern "wrapping" tangyuan all take the meaning of reunion, symbolizing the reunion and happiness of the whole family and gathering every year.
Flower lights
2
On the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, the streets and alleys are hung high with red lights. Animal head lamps, marquee lamps, flower lamps, bird and poultry lamps, etc., as described in Xin's words: "The east wind blooms flowers and trees at night, and blows down, and the stars are like rain." ”
Guess the riddle
3
Guessing lantern riddles, also known as lantern riddles, is a special activity of the Lantern Festival that has been circulating since ancient times. Write the riddle on a slip of paper and paste it on a colorful lantern for people to guess.
Lion Dance
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Lion dance is an excellent folk art in China, this custom originated in the Three Kingdoms period, became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and has a history of more than 1,000 years. Every Lantern Festival or gathering celebration, the folk come to the lion dance to help.
"Chinese Valentine's Day"
The Lantern Festival is also a romantic festival in traditional Chinese festivals. In the feudal traditional society, young girls were not allowed to go out to move freely, and on the day of the Lantern Festival, girls could watch the Lantern Lantern Festival together, providing an opportunity for unmarried men and women to meet each other. Therefore, the Lantern Festival is also known as "Chinese Valentine's Day".
Xin Renjie said, "The crowd looked for him a thousand times, and suddenly looked back, but the man was there, and the lights were dimmed." "Some people always have to wait to meet, and the most desirable thing is not the surprise of that look.
The Lantern Festival, meeting the right person in the middle of the sky, is the most moving part of this festival.
Origins of the festival
Festivals and festivals
The festival period and customary activities of the Lantern Festival are extended and expanded with the development of history. In terms of the length of the festival, the Han Dynasty was only one day, by the Tang Dynasty it was three days, the Song Dynasty was as long as five days, and the Ming Dynasty was even lighted from the beginning of the eighth month until the night of the seventeenth day of the first month. In the Qing Dynasty, the content of "hundred plays" such as dragon dance, lion dance, dry boat running, stilt walking, and twisting rice songs was added, but the festival period was shortened to four to five days.
Evolution
During the Ming Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, emperor Ming advocated Buddhism, and heard that Buddhism had the practice of monks viewing the Buddha relics on the fifteenth day of the first month and lighting lamps to pay homage to the Buddha, so he ordered that the night be lit in the imperial palace and temples to pay homage to the Buddha, so that the people of the scholar clan hung lamps, which also formed the Lantern Appreciation Lamp.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Lantern Festival lanterns had become a climate, and it was the Sui and Tang Dynasties that really carried forward the custom of lanterns in the Lantern Festival.
During the Sui Dynasty, the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month was already unprecedented. The "Sui Shu Liu Yu Biography" records: "Every first lunar month looks at the night, fills the streets with strangers, and gathers to play and travel. Drums beat the sky and burn on the ground. At that time, the residents of Chang'an City would come out to watch the lights and watch the theater, and the street performances were also rich and interesting, "people wear animal faces, men are women's clothes, advocate excellent miscellaneous tricks, and strange shapes." ”
Tang Dynasty, in the Tang Dynasty, the national strength is unprecedentedly strong, the Lantern Appreciation Lantern is very prosperous, whether it is the capital or townships, everywhere hanging lanterns, people also make huge lamp wheels, lamp trees, lamp posts, etc., full of fire trees and silver flowers, very prosperous and lively.
In the Song Dynasty, from the fourteenth day of the first month to the eighteenth day of the first month, there were lantern burning activities. The Lantern Festival developed into the most lively secular carnival in the Song Dynasty, the Lantern Festival is more colorful, the Lantern Festival lasts for five days, the styles of the lanterns are complex and diverse, and visiting the Lantern Market is a very pleasing thing.
By the Yuan Dynasty, the Rulers of the Yuan Dynasty believed that life was in movement, that work was rest, and that most of the holidays were canceled, with only 16 days of holidays throughout the year.
The Lantern Festival of the Ming Dynasty lasted longer, from the eighth to the seventeenth day of the first lunar month for ten full days to show the singing and dancing.
In the Qing Dynasty, foreign nationalities entered the Central Plains, and the court no longer held lantern festivals, but the folk lantern festivals were still spectacular. Although the Lantern Festival lasted only three days in the Qing Dynasty, the folk lights were brilliant and the lights were more exquisite and magical, which was still very attractive.
In modern times, the date has been shortened to five days, which continues to this day. In 2015, the deputies and members suggested that the Lantern Festival be closed. The festival customs of the Lantern Festival are very distinctive, and the development, lantern viewing and burning fireworks are still one of the main customs of the Lantern Festival.
Finally, Xiao Concave wishes everyone:
Condense friendship, sublimate happiness,
Pack up the reunion, carry the happiness,
Borrow the Lantern Reunion, send auspicious warmth,
May you be happy together, blessed together, a smooth career, a happy family, a surprising flower lantern, a sweet tangyuan, and all the best for the Lantern Festival.