FestivalEast Asia · China
Lantern Festival
No rule yet
Nobody has written a rule for this observance yet, so the calendar does not put it on a day. A name with a made-up date beside it would be worse than a name on its own.
In short
The fifteenth night of the new year, closed with lanterns and riddles.
The story
The fifteenth night, the first full moon of the year, and the close of the new year fortnight. Lanterns are hung and carried, and riddles are written on them to be guessed - a custom about a thousand years old. Chinese lunisolar calendar, not computed here.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Why it matters
The fifteenth night, the first full moon of the year, and the formal close of the new year season. Lanterns are hung with riddles written on them for passers-by to answer, and tangyuan are eaten - round, in a round bowl, on the night of the round moon, for the family being whole.
What people do
Tangyuan - glutinous rice balls in soup - are eaten, and the roundness is the point. Lantern riddles are hung in public and answered for prizes. Dragon and lion dances close the fortnight, and in some places the lanterns are floated or flown.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Told differently elsewhere
Taiwan releases sky lanterns at Pingxi and fires the beehive rockets at Yanshui; Hong Kong and much of the diaspora keep it as a Chinese Valentine's Day, which the mainland gives to Qixi instead.
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