Short Customs of Lantern Festival

The customs of the Lantern Festival include eating Yuanxiao, sending lanterns and lion dance.

1. Eating Lantern Festival.

Eating Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday custom, mostly carried out in the Lantern Festival, meaning reunion, peace and security. Lanterns to sugar, rose, sesame, bean paste, yellow cinnamon, walnuts, nuts, jujube paste, etc. for the filling, wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a round, meat can be vegetarian, different flavors. It can be boiled in soup, deep-fried or steamed, and has the meaning of reunion and happiness.

On the Lantern Festival food customs, there have been some interesting legends. One said that after Chang'e ran to the moon, his husband thinking of his wife into a disease, finally got the immortal point, in the first month of the fifteenth with rice flour for pills, called Chang'e name, finally and Chang'e together. Another said, the emperor to reward the general Guo Ziyi returned from the western expedition, so that the imperial kitchen to make a new white round dumplings, the emperor tasted even after praising the delicious, and named the Tang round. Because Tang round is eaten in the Lantern Festival Lantern, it is called Lantern.

2, send lights.

Send lights, also known as send lanterns, traditional Chinese folklore. That is, before the Lantern Festival, the mother's family to send lanterns to the newly married daughter's home, or general friends and relatives to the newly married sterile home, in order to add Ding auspicious omen, because the "lights" and "Ding" resonance.

This ancient traditional custom in many places, Xi'an, Shaanxi area is the first eight to fifteen during the first month to send lamps, the first year to send a pair of large lanterns, a pair of glass lamps with colorful paintings, hope that the daughter of the marriage of the lucky star, early birth of a child; such as the daughter of the pregnancy, in addition to the large lanterns, but also to send one or two pairs of lanterns, wishing the daughter a safe pregnancy.

Some areas in Xinyang, Henan Province, send lanterns to deceased ancestors at the Lantern Festival to express condolences and wishes, is a traditional local custom of ancestor worship.

3.? Lion Dance.

The lion dance is a traditional Asian folk performing art in which the performers dress up as lions under the music of gongs and drums and make lion movements in various forms. Chinese folklore tradition, it is believed that the lion dance can drive away evil spirits. Therefore, whenever there are festivals, such as new celebrations, spring games, etc., like to beat the gongs and drums, lion dance to help celebrate.