Lantern Festival (redirected from Lantern Day)

Lantern Festival (Korea)

Eighth day of the fourth lunar month

In Korea, Buddha's birthday is observed on the evening of the eighth day of the fourth lunar month and is known as Deungseog or "lantern evening." A couple of days beforehand, some households hang a lantern-holder, a pole decorated with a pheasant's tail feather (or branch of pine) and colorful strips of silk. Then, on the evening of the eighth, they hang one lantern for each person in the family and light them. Tradition holds that the more brilliant the household can make its lantern display, the luckier it will be.
Although many types of lanterns are used, some of the most popular resemble a tortoise, duck, ship, drum, lotus flower, heron, carp, watermelon, or sun and moon.
Monks began the custom of hanging lanterns for Buddha's birthday during the middle of the Silla dynasty (seventh-eighth century). As Confucianism took stronger hold during the Yi dynasty (1392-1910), it fell into decline. Later in the 20th century many Koreans revived the tradition, though nowadays it is not as widespread. Still, temples all over South Korea hold celebrations in honor of the Buddha on this day with elaborate lantern displays, particularly in Seoul, where there are festivals at major temples with special religious services, other spiritual activities, games, crafts, and a huge lantern parade.
See also Vesak

CONTACTS:
The Korea Herald
3rd-5th Fl., 1-17, Jeong-dong
P.O. Box 6479, Jung-gu
Seoul, Korea
82-2-727-0205; fax: 82-2-727-0670
www.koreaherald.co.kr

SOURCES:
AnnCustKorea-1983, p. 97
FestWrld: SouthKorea-1998, p. 12
FolkWrldHol-1999, p. 305

---

Lantern Festival (Yuan Hsiao Chieh)

January-February; 15th day of first lunar month, fourth day of first lunar month in Tibet

The Lantern Festival is a festival of lights that ends the Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, celebrations and marks the first full moon of the new lunar year.
In China, it's traditional for merchants to hang paper lanterns outside their shops for several days before the full-moon day. On the night of the festival, the streets are bright with both lanterns and streamers, and people go out in throngs to see the displays. The most popular lanterns are cut-outs of running horses that revolve with the heat of the candles that light them. Other customs include eating round, stuffed dumplings and solving "lantern riddles"—riddles that are written on pieces of paper and stuck to the lanterns. In many areas, children parade with lanterns of all shapes and sizes. It's also thought to be a good night for young women to find husbands. In Penang, Malaysia, single women in their best dresses stroll along the city's promenade, and some parade in decorated cars followed by musicians.
Tibetan Buddhists celebrate the day as Monlam, or Prayer Festival, and in Lhasa, the butter sculptures of the monks are famous ( see Butter Sculpture Festival). In China's Gansu Province, the Lhabuleng Monastery is the site of sculptured butter flowers made by the lamas and hung in front of the main scripture hall. On the day before the full moon, a dance is performed by about 30 masked lamas to the music of drums, horns, and cymbals. The protagonists are the God of Death and his concubines; they dance with others who are dressed as skeletons, horned stags, and yaks.
In 1990, the Taipei Lantern Festival was first held in Taiwan's capital city. It's held at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and features high-tech lanterns with mechanical animation, dry-ice "smoke," and laser beams. In recent years, theme lanterns were modeled after the Chinese zodiacal animals for those years. Sculptor Yuyu Yang has produced elaborate structures for the festival, including a dragon that was 40 feet high with a skin of a stainless-steel grid and 1,200 interior light bulbs that shone through to make it look like a gigantic hand-made paper lantern. Laser beams shot from the dragon's eyes, and red-colored smoke spewed from the mouth. Another year, he created three 33-foot-high goats made of acrylic tubes with colored lights shining from the inside.
The festival also offers musical and folk art performances, a procession of religious and folk floats, and troupes of performers entertaining with martial arts demonstrations, stilt-walking, and acrobatics.
In Hong Kong, anyone who has had a son during the year brings a lantern to the Ancestral Hall, where the men gather for a meal.
The Lantern Festival is supposed to have originated with the emperors of China's Han dynasty (206 b.c.e.-221 c.e.), who paid tribute to the universe on that night. Because the ceremony was held in the evening, lanterns were used to illuminate the palace. The Han rulers imposed a year-round curfew on their subjects, but on this night the curfew was lifted, and the people, carrying their own simple lanterns, went forth to view the fancy lanterns of the palace.
Another legend holds that the festival originated because a maid of honor (named Yuan Xiao, also the name of the sweet dumpling of this day) in the emperor's household longed to see her parents during the days of the Spring Festival. The resourceful Dongfang Shuo decided to help her. He spread the rumor that the god of fire was going to burn down the city of Chang-an. The city was thrown into a panic. Dongfang Shuo, summoned by the emperor, advised him to have everyone leave the palace and also to order that lanterns be hung in every street and every building. In this way, the god of fire would think the city was already burning. The emperor followed the advice, and Yuan Xiao took the opportunity to see her family. There have been lanterns ever since.

CONTACTS:
Hong Kong Tourism Board
115 E. 54th St. 2/F
New York, NY 10022
212-421-3382; fax: 212-421-8428
www.discoverhongkong.com
Taiwan Government Information Office
4201 Wisconsin Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20016
202-895-1850; fax: 202-362-6144
www.gio.gov.tw

SOURCES:
BkFestHolWrld-1970, p. 9
BkHolWrld-1986, Feb 27
DictFolkMyth-1984, p. 603
EncyRel-1987, vol. 3, p. 325
FolkWrldHol-1999, p. 91
GdWrldFest-1985, p. 63
HolSymbols-2009, p. 479
RelHolCal-2004, p. 231