Chinese

Chinese Festivities

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

     As you all may know, these past few weeks have been very important for the Chinese culture. They've been celebrating multiple holidays, such as Chinese New Years and most recently the Lantern Festival. In class, we have been learning all about the things that they do during these particular holidays. This week, we learned about the Lantern Festival. During this celebration, they have large dinners with traditional symbolic food. They also put together lion dances and traditional celebrations. This includes really high tech paper cutouts of red fish. They place red banners along the side of the doors and typically write a parallel poem on each side. They also shoot fire crackers. They do this because of a special legend. They believe that the fire crackers would scare away a strong monster who's weakness was fire and loud noises. The event that most impressed me was something they do to show their respects towards the God of wealth. They parade volunteers that represent the God around town throwing fire crackers at them. These "Gods" are shirtless and wear only red shorts. They alternate between the volunteers and parade them around town. They also release lanterns into the sky all at once. This is done as a traditional event. It goes back a long time! Lanterns were used to send messages from the people that had reached to mountains to their families to let them know they had arrived safely. Today, it is simply done as a traditional custom. Below you will find images of these festivities.

Thanks for reading! 

-Melissa S.