Lantern festival : This Party lanterns (元宵节 yuánxiāojié) where the light is queen closes the cycle of revelry du New Year en China. Night party, it is sometimes called " small New Year »(Xiaonian 小 年). The population (nowadays, especially children accompanied by their parents) goes out for a walk after dark, lantern in hand. Although traditional candle-lit paper models (huadeng 花灯) retain their followers, there are more and more of them made in plastic and equipped with batteries. The effigies of young people's favorite cartoon characters compete with traditional designs (with animals et plants, legendary or mythological scenes).
Playing the riddles that are written on the lanterns is a popular activity. If we have found the word to the riddle, we can win a gift. This activity dates from the Song dynasty (960-1279). This intellectual game is favored by all social strata.
During the day, artistic performances are organized: lion dance, dragon dance, boat dance, yangge dance, tambourine dance and walking on stilts. In the evening, we admire in addition to the lanterns magnificent fireworks. In several cities, they are organized by local authorities.
The origin of this Party is complex. She continues a very old traditional which divided the year into three parts (yuan 元), the first starting on the 15th day of the first month with a feast in honor of theanniversary. of Tianguandadi, divinity ruling the Heaven introduced in the time of the Han by the School of the five bushels of rice. This celebration would have been enriched by traditions from the imperial court (lanterns, dumplings).
The legends relating the origin of the festival relate to the wrath of a god threatening to set fire to the capital on the 15th day of the first lunar month. A shrewd person would then have had the idea to bring out all the inhabitants in the street that evening with red lanterns, and to hang some on all the doors, so that the god, believing the city already in flames , withdraws. In the most popular version, the Divine Threat is a hoax set up by a big-hearted Imperial advisor to allow a young palace maid to come out and see her family again for one evening. Another story traces the festival back to the Han dynasty (206-220 BC).
Buddhism (*) starting to spread in China, after learning that the monks had a custom on the 15th of the 1st lunar month to contemplate the relics of the Buddha and to light lamps to worship the Buddha, the emperor ordered to also light lanterns that day in the evening in the imperial palace and the temples. Since then, this Buddhist rite has gradually become a great Party popular.
(*) Buddhism is a religion and a philosophy whose origins are in India in the XNUMXth - XNUMXth centuries BC. AD following the awakening of Siddhartha Gautama in Bodhgaya and the dissemination of his teaching.
Location traditional of the Lantern Festival: It is traditional de eat a Soupe de yuanxiao (元宵) or tangyuan (汤圆, literally: "rond en Soupe ") dessert eponym of the Party. Those are meatballs de dough de rice farcies (in majority sweet) cooked withwater, whose form rounded symbolizes the fullness, the family reunited and the for needs.