1000’s of individuals in Taiwan and China celebrated the Lantern Pageant by releasing paper lanterns into the evening sky, visiting gentle installations and snacking on glutinous rice dumplings.
The Chinese language Lantern Pageant marks the top of Chinese language New Yr celebrations and symbolises the approaching of spring.
On the Pingxi Sky Lantern Pageant in northern Taiwan, 1000’s lined up within the rain to gentle up and observe want lanterns.
Villagers in Taiwan began utilizing paper lanterns greater than a century in the past to suggest to others it was protected to return after bandits raided their communities. At the moment, the lanterns carry hopes of peace and prosperity within the New Yr.
A complete of 9 waves of lantern releases had been interspersed with music and dance performances as a part of the competition. The celebs of the present had been a pair of three.6-metre (12-foot) pink and golden snake-shaped lanterns, in a nod to the Yr of the Snake.
Folks in China additionally celebrated the Lantern Pageant, though no formally organised occasion there sees the discharge of huge quantities of paper lanterns.
As a substitute, Beijing residents queued for glutinous rice dumplings – the competition’s most sought-after snack – and visited gentle reveals throughout the town. The biggest amongst them, on the Beijing Backyard Expo Park, within the metropolis’s suburbs, displayed greater than 10,000 installations of varied sizes and designs.
Some installations had been as much as 18 metres (60 ft) tall and depicted every thing from cultural landmarks to conventional symbols such because the God of Fortune, dragons and phoenixes to trendy interpretations, equivalent to a cyberpunk-style Beijing opera headdress.
