Spring Lantern Festival , also known as Shang Yuan Festival, is one of the traditional festivals in China. It is on January 15^th according to Chinese lunar calender. On the Lantern Festival, there is the first full moon night in Chinese lunar year, symbolizing the coming back of the spring. It is the time that most Chinese people reunite with family and enjoy the glorious full moon together.–-J460 ADAPTER 

According to the custom of China, people on that night will carry nice lanterns and go out admire the full moon as well as fireworks, guess lantern riddles, and eat sweet dumplings to celebrate the festival. Several days before the Lantern Festival, people begin to make lanterns they want. Silk, paper and plastic lanterns vary in shape and size, and are usually multi-colored. Some are in the shapes of butterflies, birds, flowers,and boats. Others are shaped like dragon, fruit and animal symbols of that year. While making lanterns, people usually write riddles on them so that other people can guess the riddles on the day of the Lantern Festival. On the eve of Lantern Festival, all the lanterns are hang up. The special food for the Lantern Festival is sweet dumplings, which also called Yuen Sin or Tong Yuen by Chinese people and sweet soup balls by most English people. These are round dumplings made with sticky rice flour. They can be filled and served as a sweet snack or made plain and cooked in a soup with vegetables, meat and dried shrimp. The round shape of the dumpling is a symbol of wholeness, integrality and unity. In addition, some places even have folk performance such as playing dragon lanterns, lion dance and stilt walking.

The Lantern Festival, a significant traditional Chinese festival which has been in existence for over 2000 years, is still popular in China, even overseas. Almost all Chinese people on that day will take part in a great number of activities no matter where they are.

Aili  wishes everyone  a happy Lantern Festival and all your wishes come true.