Lantern Festival Guide: The Origins and Traditional Customs of Lighting Lanterns and Eating Yuanxiao

The Lantern Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and is also known as the Shangyuan Festival or the Lantern Festival; it is the first important traditional festival after the Spring Festival. This day is the first full-moon night of the new year, when people admire decorative lanterns, guess lantern riddles and eat yuanxiao, and the lively festive atmosphere often lasts until after the Lantern Festival before it truly comes to an end. This festival has a long history and embodies the hope for reunion and happiness.

The ways of celebrating the Lantern Festival vary from place to place, and lantern viewing is the most representative activity, with streets hung with all kinds of decorative lanterns, children carrying lanterns as they play, and adults guessing riddles for fun. Folk performances such as dragon and lion dances, stilt walking and yangge dancing also often appear at this time, and a festive atmosphere fills both town and countryside. Many places also hold lantern fairs, attracting whole families to go out together.

When it comes to food, yuanxiao and tangyuan are the stars of the festival; both are made from glutinous rice flour and filled with fillings such as sesame, peanut and red bean paste. In the north, yuanxiao are more commonly made by rolling the filling in glutinous rice flour; in the south, they are called tangyuan and are made by wrapping the filling in glutinous rice dough, giving a softer and more chewy texture. Glutinous rice is an important grain crop in China, and the popularity of seasonal foods has also driven the glutinous rice planting and processing industry.

For farmers, the Lantern Festival also has agricultural significance. Around the fifteenth day of the first lunar month comes the time for preparing the fields, and folk custom holds that the New Year is not over until the Lantern Festival has passed; once the festival is over, repairing farm tools and preparing seeds and fertilizer must be put on the agenda, and spring plowing production begins right away. In some places, farming proverbs that judge the year's harvest by the weather on the Lantern Festival still circulate, showing that traditional festivals are quite closely linked to agricultural production.