The Spring Lantern Festival : A Carnival of Lights!

Hong Kong prepares itself for a ‘supermoon’ festival with giant cloth lanterns and fiery dragons that light-up the streets and hearts of the city

By: Aishwarya Vishwanathan

On the first full moon day of the Lunar calendar, the moon reigns over Hong Kong, glowing its full splendor. During this day under the light of the February moon, the city of Hong Kong transforms itself into an enchanted kingdom with mesmerising carnival of lanterns. The Spring Lantern Festival, also called the Yuan Xiao Festival, is celebrated to represent hope for the year ahead.

The festival, which dates back more than 2,000 years, is marked around China and several parts of the world with celebrations and spectacular displays of light and craftsmanship.
It is said that Buddhist monks would light lanterns in order to worship Buddha. Releasing the lanterns, which are red for good luck, symbolises people letting go of their past selves and embracing new identities for the coming year.

A famous legend attached to this festival is that during this day Gautam Buddha defeated the demons. Lanterns are, therefore, lighted to commemorate this victory of good over evil. Since 25 AD, this custom has been popularly celebrated.

Today, the festival has transformed itself into a spectacular event that witnesses a huge gathering. The most striking feature of this event is the Lantern Displays where the lanterns take various shapes including animals, flowers, buildings, people and more. The most notable lanterns are ones with the shape of Chinese zodiac signs. Auspicious Chinese symbols like the Goldfish and pomegranate fruit are an immutable part of this festivity.

Besides the fascinating lantern displays, the day is celebrated with lion and dragon dances and eating tangyuan – dumplings made of rice flour. The round dumplings are said to symbolise family togetherness. The locals recreate the fiery ancient ritual of their ancestors with a whopping dragon that wends its way in smoke, fire and festive fury.

The laughter and bona fide expressions of joy on the face of people looking at long lines of procession in the carnival are doubled as they come together to savour yuan xiao (glutinous rice balls with fillings that replicate the shape of the full moon). People also gather around to witness the display of Chinese heritage as various craftsmen come together to showcase their talent of lantern making and painting crafts.

According to popular belief, this custom dates back to old days when Chinese young literates used to show off their talent to attract the fancy of young ladies.