Customs of Shanghang Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival welcomes lanterns. The main entertainment activities in Shanghang Hakka area in the first month are lantern festival and temple fair. Some people hold their own Lantern Festival on traditional days according to local surnames. There are lion dances, dragon dances and boat lights on the Lantern Festival.

There are two little-known lanterns in Shanghang, namely the "high-shed lantern" in Huaiyang village of Huaitu and the "military-civilian lantern" in Zhiping highland village. The legendary high-shed lamp is a gift from the emperor, such as a square tall building with an overall height of more than eight meters. The picture frame is made of bamboo, and there are hundreds of lanterns of various shapes on the front of the paper. At night, each bird lamp is lit with two kinds of white light, and the main body is also lit with a candle holder marked with the second son of "Imperial Decree". The whole lamp is resplendent and dazzling.

There are 16 "civil and military lights" handed down in the Song Dynasty, such as overhead lights, brush lights, flag lights, arrow lights, knife-closing lights and so on. Exquisite craftsmanship and strong three-dimensional sense. The performance methods are: the ancient array methods such as the trapped group array, the Longmen array, the Huimen array and the Bagua array. When playing lanterns, relatives and friends are guests, and the host will prepare tables and drinks for them.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, Hakkas called it "the last year". From now on, all production and business activities have returned to normal. On this day, as in other places, the Lantern Festival is celebrated, and every family kills chickens and buys meat to celebrate. The most common food eaten by Shanghang Hakkas is pine balls (cooked with tofu, sweet potato powder, pork and winter bamboo shoots). ), which means that the situation is relaxed all year round and the Lantern Festival is fun at night.