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China celebrates traditional Lantern Festival
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-09 15:45

In the neighboring Tianjin Municipality, the third session of "lantern making contest" is going on, which is set from Sunday to Tuesday.


Lanterns and colourful lights decorate the banks of the Qinhai River and Confucius Temple marking the upcoming Lantern Festival in Nanjing, capital city of east China's Jiangsu province, February 8, 2009. [Xinhua]

The lanterns made by citizens are hung on the ancient crabapple trees in the Old City Museum.

"Some folk artists are invited to make performances of calligraphy, painting, paper cutting, embroidery, and flour sculpture," said Wang Liwen, curator of the museum.

In Inner Mongolia, the tradition of Zhuandeng was followed. Zhuandeng literally means walking around the lanterns, which bore a history of more than 3,000 years. A shelf made by more than 300 poles was made to hold 365 lanterns, each representing a day in one year.

"People believe that walking around the shelf symbolizes walking around hardship in the year," said Wang Yunliang, who organized the activity in Hohhot. Similar rituals were performed in Baotou and Bayannur as well.

In the Taer Monastery in Qinghai, more than 40 monks made Ghee flowers to celebrate the festival. Exhibition of ghee flowers, which the monastery was famous for, was held every year for the Lantern Festival.

The theme this year was the life story of Tsongkhapa, founder of the Geluk school, or the largest one of Tibetan Buddhism.

Similarly, in Shanghai, flowers were also used for Lantern Festival celebration, but these were real.