So we finished Spring Festival. I'm so glad it's over. I don't even want to talk about it ever again.
So, apparently China has not finished celebrating yet that's because we've got Lantern Festival which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month and in Chinese it's called yuan xiao jie.
There's a funny story as to why this festival is called yuan xiao jie. There's a mildly interesting story as to why this festival is called yuan xiao jie.
The first month of the lunar calendar is known as the yuan month and in ancient China the night was referred to as xiao. So when the first full moon rolls around, this night is accordingly known as yuan xiao.
That doesn't really explain anything actually, does it? So here's theory number one. The first theory behind the origins of this festival is that the emperors of China were worshipping the God of heaven. So beginning with the very first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, they would each hold ceremonies throughout the night of the first full moon, asking this God for good weather for the year ahead.
But theory number two is a bit more interesting. In the Han Dynasty, Dong Fang Shuo was an advisor to the emperor. Now one day he heard somebody crying in an imperial garden. He went to see what was happening and he found a little girl crying getting ready to jump into a well and kill herself. So he said, 「What you doing?」 The little girl, a maid called Yuan Xiao, said she hadn't seen her parents since she started working in the temple and if she couldn't pay respects to her parents, she'd rather die.
So Dong Fang Shuo said to her, 「No, don’t die. I'll sort it out.」
At this point, Dong Fang Shuo, a respected individual within society, went around and started spreading a rumor that on the 15th day of the first lunar month a fire would engulf the city. What a liar!
He then told people that on the 13th day of that first lunar month, a fairy dressed in red would come around and she』d start to burn the city down. And the people should ask you for mercy. But in actual fact, that fairy was Yuan Xiao in disguise. So she's a liar too!
When Yuan Xiao walked through the city, she gave everybody a proclamation from the god of fire, said this must be delivered to emperor. The emperor read this and naturally he asked Dong Fang Shuo for some advice. And I promise this is exactly what he said: 「The god of fire likes to eat tangyuan」 which a little sweet balls made from glutinous rice flour filled with all kinds of fillings.
Anyway that's what he said: 「Yuanxiao is pretty good at making tangyuan, aren't you? So let her make tangyuan, and you can tell everyone else to make tangyuan and also tell everyone to hang red lanterns and and light firecrackers and then it'll look like the city's on fire and will trick the god of fire. Does that sound ok?
And the emperor said yes. He followed the plan and at some point for some reason, Yuan Xiao’s parents went to the palace and were reunited with their daughter and because Yuan Xiao made the best tangyuan, everybody decided to call this festival Yuan Xiao Festival.
Surely that's not true. I've been told to say that that might be true. Anyway, aside from hanging lanterns and eating tangyuan and lighting firecrackers, people also like to solve riddles during this festival as these riddles were attached to the lanterns during the Tang Dynasty. Now they often carried messages of good fortune. I've got one right to my pocket here. I took it down from the lantern earlier.
Let's have a go and try and solve it. 「You'll have a good year ahead of you and every day you'll eat Beijing duck as long as you're able to tell me a word that rhymes with luck.」
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新年心願：
看官，看完點「在看」，
接著，果斷轉發朋友圈