The Chinese New Year is a riotous celebration of dazzling, colorful, bigger-than-life, simulated animals, thunderous firework displays, and thrilling anticipation of new beginnings, good fortune and health. Unlike western New Year celebrations that mark one night only, Chinese New Year
celebrations focus on a range of days to celebrate and mark the coming of spring as the season of new beginnings.
The Chinese New Year is an astronomically determined, movable date that always occurs at the second new moon after the Winter Solstice. The New Year triggers celebrations that last fifteen days from the new moon to the first full moon. The beautiful Lantern or Shang Yuan Festival is the last celebration in this time period and is often called the Second New Year for its exuberant good spirit, delicious sweet treats, animated simulated animals, clever riddles, and its special trademark touch, beautiful lanterns.
Originated in the Tang dynasty, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the birthday of Shang Yuan, the God of Heaven. Children carry beautifully decorated lanterns on the night of the festival and hundreds more lanterns adorn temples. Displays of original and unique lanterns are exhibited for everyone to enjoy and activities such as stilt-walking and dancing traditional folk dances such as the yangge are sure to be represented.
Lantern Festival emphasizes the culture and tradition of the family through the use of lanterns decorated with scenes and motifs that incorporate popular family traditional and mythic stories. The stories, similar to European fairy tale collections, teach root values of family through the designs chosen to decorate the lanterns. Scenes from popular, seminal folklore such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Legend of the White Snake, the Weaving Maiden and the Cowherd, reinforce the teaching of these tales.
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