What is the traditional Shangyuan Festival in China?

Lantern Festival, also known as Shangyuan Festival, Xiaoyuanyuan Festival, Yuanxi Festival or Lantern Festival, is the 15th day of the first lunar month and the last important festival of China Spring Festival. Lantern Festival is one of the traditional festivals in China, Chinese character cultural circle and overseas Chinese. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar. The ancients called "night", so the fifteenth day of the first full moon in a year was called Lantern Festival.

In the ancient customs of China, Shangyuan Festival (Tianguan Festival), Zhongyuan Festival (Diguan Festival, Yulan Festival) and Xiayuan Festival (Shuiguan Festival) are collectively called Sanyuan Festival. 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. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sacrificed "Taiyi" in Ganquan Palace on the first night of the first month, which was regarded by later generations as a precursor to offering sacrifices 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.

Folk custom of eating Yuanxiao on Lantern Festival. Yuanxiao is called "Tangyuan", "Zi Yuan", "Floating Zi Yuan" and "Shui Yuan" in the south. It is made of glutinous rice, solid or stuffed. The fillings are red bean paste, sugar, hawthorn and so on. Can be boiled, fried, steamed and fried. At first, people called this kind of food "floating Zi Yuan", and later they called it "dumpling" or "dumpling". These names are similar to the word "reunion", which means reunion, symbolizing family reunion, harmony and happiness. People also miss their departed relatives and place their hopes on future life. Eating Yuanxiao, like a full moon, symbolizes family reunion and entrusts people with good wishes for their future life.

When and where the custom of eating Yuanxiao originated, people have different opinions. It is said that at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, King Zhao and Chu passed the Yangtze River on his way back from the countryside and saw something floating on the river, white and yellow, with a kind of flesh as red as rouge, which tasted very sweet. People didn't know what it was, so Zhao Haoqi sent someone to ask Confucius. Confucius said, "This duckweed fruit is also a sign of the master's revival."

Because this day is the fifteenth day of the first month, on this day in the future, Zhao Haoqi ordered his men to imitate this fruit with flour and cook it with red stuffing made of hawthorn. There is also a saying that Yuanxiao was originally called Tangyuan. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there was a maid-in-waiting named Yuanxiao, who was very good at making dumplings. Since then, the world has been named after this maid-in-waiting. These two legends are not recorded in historical materials, so they are not credible.