Lantern Festival celebrated with annual traditions
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 2, 2018
Editor's note: The traditional Chinese Lantern Festival falls on March 2 this year. Held on the fifteenth day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar, the festival has long-standing and treasured traditions. People eat "yuanxiao," or rice dumplings, to celebrate the first full moon after the Lunar New Year. They hang lanterns with hopes for a happy and prosperous future, and stage dragon dances or lion dances. Here, China.org.cn shares how people celebrate this traditional festival each year.
Eating 'yuanxiao'
People eat "yuanxiao," or rice dumplings, on this day, so the Lantern Festival is also called the "yuanxiao festival ." The word "yuanxiao" is used in northern China and literally means "first evening," referring to the first full moon after the Lunar New Year. Yuanxiao are sweet dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as fillings. They can be boiled, fried or steamed. Yuanxiao also have another name, "tangyuan," which is used in southern China. "Tangyuan" in Chinese is pronounced similarly to "tuanyuan," meaning "reunion." So, people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.
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