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Chinese Lanterns
This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist
monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and
light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he
ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the
Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its
influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.
Till today, the lantern festival is still held each year around
the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets,
attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns
to stroll with on the streets, extremely excited.
People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also
called the "Yuanxiao Festival." Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan. It is
small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean
paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling.
Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What's
more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with "tuanyuan", meaning
reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the
family.
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