This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout
the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira,
or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month,
so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist
rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of
China.
Till today, the lantern festival is still held each year around the country. Lanterns of various shapes
and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll
with on the streets, extremely excited.
"Guessing lantern riddles"is an essential part of the Festival.
Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the riddles,
they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owners to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little
gift. The activity emerged during people's enjoyment of lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting
and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all social strata.
People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the "Yuanxiao
Festival."Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan. It is small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour
with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. Tangyuan
can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What's more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation
with "tuanyuan”, meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.
In the daytime of the Festival, performances such as a dragon
lantern dance, a lion dance, a land boat dance, a yangge dance, walking on stilts and beating drums while dancing will
be staged. On the night, except for magnificent lanterns, fireworks form a beautiful scene. Most families spare some fireworks
from the Spring Festival and let them off in the Lantern Festival. Some local governments will even organize a fireworks party.
On the night when the first full moon enters the New Year, people become really intoxicated by the imposing fireworks and
bright moon in the sky.