The Lantern Festival (元宵节) is on the 15th day of the first month of the Lunar Year, taking place under a full moon, and marks the end of Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) festivities. For the year of 2007, it is today - the 4th of March. It is said that the Festival dates back to shrouded legends of the Han Dynasty over 2000 years ago.

The important festivity for this day is watching lanterns of numerous kinds, and “Guessing lantern riddles” is an essential part of the Festival. People write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns (or write them directly on the lanterns). Visitors who work out the solutions to the riddles can tear it off (or remember the numbers) and take it the lantern owners to check their answer. Sometimes, if the solution are right, they will be given a little gift.

The special food for the Festival is Yuan Xiao (元宵) or Tang Yuan (汤圆), or rice dumplings. Yuan Xiao are balls of glutinous rice rolled around a filling of sesame, peanuts, vegetable, or meat. Yuan Xiao can be boiled or fried. Tang Yuan are often cooked in red-bean or other kinds of soup.

It is said that the custom of eating Yuanxiao originated during the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the fourth centuty, then became popular during the Tang and Song periods. The round shape symbolizes wholeness and unity.

Note: Some photos are from http://www.pingtan.com.cn/.

Today is the third day of the Chinese New Year. Most people are still on holidays enjoying themselves with family feast, delicious food, visiting relatives and friends, going to art performances, and firing fireworks and firecrackers. Spring Festival, known to the West more as the Chinese New Year and comparable to the Christmas holidays in the West, is the most important celebration for Chinese people every year.

There are various kinds of festivities during the Spring Festival period. Although the official holiday is usually about a week starting from the first day of the lunar New Year, the preparation and celebrations for the New Year actually starts from the last month of the previous year, as early as on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month when many families enjoy “laba porridge” (腊八粥) made with glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job’s tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko, and will not end until the day of the Lantern Festival on the 15^th of the first lunar month.

Spring Festival Couplets

As a tradition, before the New Year comes, every people would completely clean the indoors and outdoors and beautify their homes with traditional ornaments. In many places particularly in the countryside, people would decorate all their door panels with Spring Festival couplets, putting down the best wishes for good luck, bright future, happiness and wealth, bright future for the New Year. The Spring Festival couplets are usually done with Chinese calligraphy with black or golden characters on red paper.

Reversed “Fu”

Among all the decorations, the Chinese character “fu” (福) is a must. This character, meaning blessing and happiness, would usually be pasted upside down. In Chinese, the “reversed fu” is homophonic with “fu comes” or “fu arrives”, both pronounced as “fu-dao-le” (福到了).

New Year’s Eve Family Feast

People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. All family members will be together, and have dinner together. Typically, this meal is more luxurious than usual. And the menu is a set of meaningful dishes, such as fish - “yu” (鱼), which is homophonic with ‘abundance’, would be a ‘must-have’. Others dishes like chicken and bean curd, pronounced respectively “ji” (鸡), and “doufu,” (豆腐), meaning auspiciousness (吉) and richness (富), will also be dishes for that dinner.

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Happy Spring Festival, Happy Chinese New Year!

春节愉快！