There are many traditional festivals all over the lunar calendar year in China. The one I want to talk about today is called Lantern Festival which is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar. This year it coincidentally fell on 11 February, which was amazingly both my mother and my birthday.
The Lantern Festival has over 2,000 years of history and from as early as the Western Han Dynasty, 206BC to AD25, the Lantern Festival had become a festival of great importance to Chinese communities. It typically decorates with a variety of colourful lights, decorations and fireworks to celebrate an end to Chinese New Year. It is the first full moon night in the Chinese lunar year, symbolising the coming back of the spring.
People get together on the night of the Lantern Festival to celebrate with different activities. The Lantern Festival customs and activities vary regionally due to Chinese cultural diversity. People lighten to pray for smooth futures and to express their best wishes for their families.
The typical food on Lantern Festival is to eat Tangyuan which are the ball-shaped dumplings made of glutinous rice flour, with different fillings are stuffed inside, usually sweet, such as peanuts, walnuts and bean paste and tangyuan is pronounced similarly to tuanyuan which means the whole family gathering together happily.
I feel so lucky to be born in the Lantern Festival day as it is an important day that family members get together no matter how busy they are, which means my birthday is also an important day and no one would miss my birthday. I think it is the right time for my mother and I to have a big meal to celebrate!
Cherie Lee, Newstead Wood School
