What festival is Lantern Festival?

Lantern Festival, also known as Shangyuan Festival, Little Lantern Festival, Lantern Festival or Lantern Festival, is one of the traditional festivals in China on the 15th day of the first lunar month. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar, and the ancients called "night". The fifteenth day of the first month is the first full moon night in a year, so it is called "Lantern Festival". According to the Taoist "Sanyuan Festival", the fifteenth day of the first month is also called "Shangyuan Festival". Since ancient times, the custom of Lantern Festival has been based on the warm and festive custom of watching lanterns.

The formation of Lantern Festival custom has a long process. According to general data and folklore, the fifteenth day of the first month was paid attention to in the Western Han Dynasty. On the night of the first month, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty offered sacrifices to "Taiyi" in Ganquan Palace, which was regarded by later generations as the first sacrifice to the gods on the fifteenth day of the first month. However, the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month is indeed a folk festival after the Han and Wei Dynasties. The custom of burning lanterns on the fifteenth day of the first month is related to the eastward spread of Buddhism. During the Tang dynasty, Buddhism flourished, and officials and ordinary people generally "lit lanterns for the Buddha" on the fifteenth day of the first month, so Buddha lanterns spread all over the people. Since the Tang Dynasty, the Lantern Festival has become a legal thing and has gradually become a folk custom.

Lantern Festival is one of the traditional festivals in China, Chinese character cultural circle and overseas Chinese. Lantern Festival mainly includes a series of traditional folk activities, such as watching lanterns, eating glutinous rice balls, solve riddles on the lanterns and setting off fireworks. In addition, in many places, traditional folk performances, such as playing dragon lanterns, playing lions, walking on stilts, boating, yangko dancing and playing Taiping drums, have all joined the Lantern Festival. In June 2008, the Lantern Festival was selected as the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage.

What are the customs of Lantern Festival?

1, eat Yuanxiao

Eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month, as a kind of food, has a long history in China. In the Song Dynasty, a novel Lantern Festival food was popular among the people. This kind of food was originally called "Floating Zi Yuan", later called "Yuanxiao", and merchants also called it "Yuanbao". Yuanxiao, or "Tangyuan", contains sugar, roses, sesame seeds, red bean paste, cinnamon bark, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste and so on. And wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a circle, you can be vegetarian and have different flavors. It can be boiled, fried and steamed, which means happy reunion.

2. lanterns

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival, also known as the Lantern Festival. Lantern Festival is a traditional festival custom, which began in the Western Han Dynasty and flourished in Sui and Tang Dynasties. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, lantern style prevailed in all previous dynasties and spread to future generations.

Step 3 solve the riddle on the lantern

Solve riddles on the lanterns, also known as playing riddles, is a unique form of traditional folk entertainment with rich national style in China. It is a characteristic activity of the Lantern Festival that has been circulated since ancient times. On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, traditional folks hang lanterns and set off fireworks. Later, some busybodies wrote riddles on paper and posted them on colorful lanterns for people to guess. Because solve riddles on the lanterns can enlighten wisdom and cater to the festive atmosphere, many people responded. Later, solve riddles on the lanterns gradually became an indispensable program for the Lantern Festival. Lantern riddles add to the festive atmosphere, showing the intelligence and wisdom of ancient working people and their yearning for a better life.

Step 4 send lanterns

Sending lanterns is also called sending lanterns to children. In ancient times, before the Lantern Festival, newlyweds always received lanterns from their parents. Because lanterns are homophonic with Ding, it means that their daughters and their families will be able to import more flowers in the new year, and the population will flourish. Now there are many such scenes in many TV dramas, where women put lanterns in the river.

Step 5 play with dragon lanterns

Also known as dragon lantern or dragon dance, its origin can be traced back to ancient times. Legend has it that as early as the Yellow Emperor, in a large-scale song and dance in the suburbs of Qing Dynasty, there was a leading bird image played by a man, and then a dance scene with six dragons interspersed with each other was arranged. The dragon dance recorded in writing is Zhang Heng's Xijing Fu in Han Dynasty. The author vividly described the dragon dance in the descriptions of hundreds of plays.

Step 6 walk on stilts

Walking on stilts is a popular folk performance. Stilts, originally one of the hundred plays in ancient China, appeared as early as the Spring and Autumn Period. China first introduced stilts in Liezi Fu Shuo: people with Zilan in Song Dynasty used their skills to do it in Song and Yuan Dynasties. Summoned in the Song and Yuan Dynasties to see their skills.

7. Row a dry boat

Rowing a dry boat, folklore is to commemorate Dayu who has made great contributions to water control. Rowing a dry boat, also known as running a dry boat, is an imitation of a boat on land, and the performers are mostly girls. Dry boat is not a real boat. It is made of two thin wooden boards, sawed into a boat shape, tied with bamboo and wood, covered with colored cloth and tied around the girl's waist, just like sitting on a boat, rowing with paddles in hand, singing and jumping while running. This is a dry ship. Sometimes, another man dressed as a boatman performs with his partners, mostly dressed as a clown, and amuses the audience with all kinds of funny actions. Dry boats are very popular in many areas of China.

8, offering doors, offering households

There were "seven sacrifices" in ancient times, which were two of them. The method of sacrifice is to insert poplar branches above the door, insert a pair of chopsticks in a bowl filled with bean porridge, or put wine and meat directly in front of the door.

9. Men and women are engaged

China's Valentine's Day Lantern Festival is also a romantic festival. In the feudal traditional society, Lantern Festival also provides unmarried men and women with opportunities to get to know each other. In traditional society, young girls are not allowed to go out freely, but they can go out to play together on holidays. Lantern Festival lanterns are just an opportunity to make friends, and unmarried men and women can also find their own partners by the way.

10, walk away from all diseases.

"Walk through all the diseases" is also called swimming through all the diseases, dispelling all the diseases, baking all the diseases, crossing the bridge and so on. It is an activity to eliminate disasters and pray for blessings. On the Lantern Festival night, women meet and go out together. When they see the bridge, they will cross it, thinking that this can cure diseases and prolong life.

Walking away from all diseases has been a custom in the north since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, some of which were carried out in the fifteenth, but most of them were carried out in the sixteenth. On this day, women dressed in festive costumes went out of their homes in droves, crossed the bridge for danger, went into the city, and knelt down to beg for their children until midnight.