Thursday, February 24, 2005
New Year Lantern Festival
15 days after the Chinese New Year, the Taiwanese celebrate Lantern Festival. This welcomes the new year, but is More fun than religious. Our school arranged ten coaches to take us to the mountains at Shihfen. There were thousands of people there for the event, shuttle buses had been laid on to reduce traffic and parking problems. It was lovely wandering along the old street lines with vendors selling traditional snacks, bumping into friends who we hadn't seen since the new year break. There was a path along the river, a wobble rope bridge and a couple of waterfalls to take in before nightfall and Margherita, Joyce and I joined our queue to set off a lantern. The lanterns are about a meter high made from strong tissue paper with a paraffin pouch underneath to fuel it. There were about 300 people setting off lanterns at the same time. The three of us held up the lantern and wrote our wishes and messages on the side in Chinese, such as 'shi jie he ping' which means World Peace. The stewards came and lit our lanterns and we watched them inflate and glow orange from the flame inside. A couple of minutes later it was time for the release and the lanterns sailed up into the night sky. When the lanterns are overhead you can see the flames burning brightly. There is no frame to the structure of the lantern, but even though they appear quite flimsy, I didn't see any catch fire.
It was really beautiful.
15 days after the Chinese New Year, the Taiwanese celebrate Lantern Festival. This welcomes the new year, but is More fun than religious. Our school arranged ten coaches to take us to the mountains at Shihfen. There were thousands of people there for the event, shuttle buses had been laid on to reduce traffic and parking problems. It was lovely wandering along the old street lines with vendors selling traditional snacks, bumping into friends who we hadn't seen since the new year break. There was a path along the river, a wobble rope bridge and a couple of waterfalls to take in before nightfall and Margherita, Joyce and I joined our queue to set off a lantern. The lanterns are about a meter high made from strong tissue paper with a paraffin pouch underneath to fuel it. There were about 300 people setting off lanterns at the same time. The three of us held up the lantern and wrote our wishes and messages on the side in Chinese, such as 'shi jie he ping' which means World Peace. The stewards came and lit our lanterns and we watched them inflate and glow orange from the flame inside. A couple of minutes later it was time for the release and the lanterns sailed up into the night sky. When the lanterns are overhead you can see the flames burning brightly. There is no frame to the structure of the lantern, but even though they appear quite flimsy, I didn't see any catch fire.
It was really beautiful.
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