- Gordon Dumoulin
First tiger year full moon... Lantern Festival !
Today is Lantern Festival in China, the final climax of 15 days Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). A different Spring Festival once again due to COVID measures but nonetheless a wonderful celebration for 100’s of millions around China and beyond.
The ancient Lantern Festival is on the first full moon of the New Year, usually packed with traditions as lighting up lanterns, lantern riddles, eating sweet dumplings or lion dances.
The Festival can be traced back to 2,000 years ago and the most common belief is that at the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220), Emperor 漢明帝 (Hàn míngdì) was an advocate of Buddhism. He heard that some monks lit lanterns in the temples to show respect to Buddha on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and since then he ordered all households, temples and the imperial palace to light lanterns on this special evening.
The lanterns often symbolize the people letting go of “their past selves” and “getting new ones” in the new year.
Definitely one this year's favorite lanterns is Shuey Rhon Rhon, the Paralympic mascot. Shuey Rhon Rhon is a Chinese lantern child with a glowing heart who symbolizes warmth, friendship, courage, and perseverance of Paralympic athletes.
Yuánxiāo (元宵) or tāngyuán (汤圆) are glutinous rice flour dumplings commonly filled with sugar sweet pastes of seeds, beans, preserved fruits, crushed peanuts or for example chocolate. These dumplings are the traditional food for families during Lantern Festival. As Tangyuan is pronounced similarly to Tuanyuan (团圆, group round), which means the whole family gathering together happily, the round shape of the balls and their bowls symbolize wholeness and togetherness.
My favorite is black sesame 😊 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝘂𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 ?
𝘞𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘍𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 !