"When the stars and the moon are in the sky, thousands of candles are burning, and there are two Lantern Festivals in the sky and the world."
The fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar was called "Shangyuan Festival" in ancient times, commonly known as the Lantern Festival or Lantern Festival, and this night was called "Yuan Ye" and "Yuan Xi".
As the name suggests, the most well-known traditions of the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month are eating Lantern Festival, watching lanterns, and guessing lantern riddles...
People enjoy the lanterns together.
Photo provided by the interviewee
"The picture is too beautiful to look at", "The culture of Shan Hai Jing is magnificent", "It seems to have walked into Granny Tang's oil house"...
The imaginary world of "Yu Garden Creates the Wonderful Story of Yu Yu".
Photo provided by the interviewee
It is the Shanghai Yuyuan Lantern Festival that made netizens post praises.
The imaginary world of "Yu Garden Creates the Wonderful Story of Yu Yu".
Photo provided by the interviewee
This year's Yuyuan Lantern Festival is based on the traditional Chinese myth "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" and restored it in the downtown area of Shanghai in the form of lantern art. It also brings the emotional comfort of warming the heart with lights.
Yu Garden is very popular.
Photo provided by the interviewee
Chinese Valentine's Day and Carnival
In the TV series "Daming Palace Ci" broadcast in the millennium, the young Princess Taiping sneaked out of the palace and got lost in the lively and crowded folk Lantern Festival. From then on, "once I saw Xue Shao, I missed my whole life".
In this version of the story, the origin of the entanglement between Princess Taiping and Xue Shao lies in the Lantern Festival - a carnival with bright lights.
Screenshot of "Daming Palace Ci".
Zhao Lina, director of the China Folklore Society and associate professor of the School of Communication, East China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the Lantern Festival is a festival for women to some extent. "Feudal society left women with limited time and space to show their faces, and the Lantern Festival is one of the few opportunities. .On this day, the whole people carnival, and the shackles on women are slightly relaxed, so this can be regarded as a bright spot in their relatively confined life."
Visitors in the park wear Hanfu to enjoy the lanterns.
Photo provided by the interviewee
On the Lantern Festival, whether married or unmarried, women cherish the rare opportunity to travel and often dress up very grandly.
It can be seen from the scenes described in the notebook "Old Stories of Wulin" in the Southern Song Dynasty: Women wear colorful ornaments such as pearls and emeralds, such as moths, jade plums, snow willows, bodhi leaves, etc., as well as "light ball" earrings in the shape of lanterns. .
About the same period of time, "Sui Shi Guang Ji" also records: the ladies in the capital have gods wearing lamp balls, and the lanterns are as big as jujube millet, with pearl antler and the like.
Light ball ornaments are shown in the "Pictures of Carrying Babies in the City" and "Pictures of Salesmen" by Li Song, a folklore painter in the Southern Song Dynasty.
"Baby Playing in the City" (partial).
Photo provided by the interviewee
In addition to accessories, clothing is the most important part of the whole look.
Different from our general belief that the ancients preferred red during festive festivals, since the Song Dynasty, people, especially women, would wear white on the Lantern Festival. The relevant records in "Old Things in the Wulin" and "The Scenery of the Imperial Capital" and the descriptions in some novels at that time can prove this festival Make clothing custom.
Tourists wearing Hanfu to watch the lanterns.
Photo provided by the interviewee
In this regard, Zhao Lina thinks: "Perhaps because of the folk saying 'If you want to be pretty, you should be filial', so women at that time, especially young women, wore white coats when they visited the Lantern Market. This expressed some of their cute little stubbornness—— —I want to be pretty, and I don’t care about other things. Of course, some scholars believe that this is mainly related to the full moon shining in the distance during the Lantern Festival. In short, ancient women’s costumes during the Lantern Festival present a unique and elegant aesthetic.”
All the jewelry is on, the white jacket is on, and the whole person looks beautiful!
What to do next?
Step up sisters and burn the calories!
Yu Garden is very popular.
Photo provided by the interviewee
There is a record in "Qing Jialu" written by Gu Lu, a Suzhou literati in the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty: On the eve of the Yuan Dynasty, women led each other to walk at night to get rid of illness, and they had to cross three bridges before stopping, which is called walking on three bridges.
On the Lantern Festival, not only do you have to enjoy lanterns and guess lantern riddles, women can also travel together and walk across three bridges to pray for health, disease and disaster in the new year, so "walking three bridges" is also called "walking a hundred bridges". Disease", this custom was roughly defined in the Ming Dynasty, and prevailed in Ming and Qing Dynasties and even modern society.
In the "Shanghai County Zhuzhi Ci·Sui Shi" in the Qing Dynasty, "Traveling in the city at night" was used to present the grand occasion of women "walking on the three bridges" at that time.
"On the head of the willow on the moon, people make an appointment after dusk." "The crowd looked for him thousands of times, and suddenly looked back, but the man was in a place with dim lights." The opportunity for women in society to go out for fun also provides them with opportunities to socialize.
The relaxed and joyful festive atmosphere makes it possible for young men and women to get to know each other, so there is a saying that the Lantern Festival is the ancient Valentine's Day.
The reason why the "famous scene" in "Daming Palace Ci" is still talked about by the audience twenty years later is that the first encounter between Taiping and Xue Shao was not abrupt during the Lantern Festival, but an artistic re-creation in line with the reality of traditional life.
The picture shows villagers in Shangrao, Jiangxi Province beating gongs, drums, suona, and dancing bench dragons. The scene was very shocking.
Photo by Ai Shimin
"The Lantern Festival is the last touch of romance and carnival left to the Chinese people during the Spring Festival." Zhao Lina believes that compared with the more solemn and serious customs during the Spring Festival, such as worshiping stoves, ancestors, New Year greetings, and meeting the God of Wealth, the Lantern Festival is not a matter of concern It is not a festival of survival, but a big party that deals with people's emotions and delicate psychology.
Lantern Festival: The Ancients Worshiped Fire and Starry Sky
"After the primitive society used fire to bring cooked food and light, people worshiped fire, and then the ancients began to worship the stars in the sky. Therefore, the oldest Lantern Festival is the primitive worship of fire and stars." According to Chen Qinjian, a tenured professor at East China Normal University and deputy director of the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Committee, folks in Chu have long had the custom of offering sacrifices to the "Taitian God".
The picture shows that the lantern show attracted countless tourists to visit.
Photo by Liu Juncong
The primitive worship of fire formed a trend of folklore and socialization in the Han Dynasty.
The society of the Han Dynasty was greatly influenced by the Chu culture, and the phenomenon of offering sacrifices to the "Taitian God" was also widespread among the people.
Yu Garden is very popular.
Photo provided by the interviewee
Later, this national custom evolved into a social celebration.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there were clusters of flowers and flickering lights everywhere, and the lights all over the city were like stars.
There are 24 solar term lanterns in Yu Garden for people to watch.
Photo provided by the interviewee
Poet Su Weiwei wrote a poem "The Fifteenth Night of the First Moon", which described the grand occasion of the Lantern Festival in Luoyang, the capital of the gods. Falling plum blossoms. Jinwu can’t help the night, and the jade leaks don’t remind each other.”
The first sentence is the source of the idiom "fire tree and silver flower".
People stand under rabbit-shaped lanterns.
Photo by Wei Liang
The late Tang poet Li Shangyin's "Walking with the Lanterns" described the prosperous scene of the Lantern Festival in Chang'an City: "The moonlight mountains are full of emperors, and the fragrant cars and treasures cover the pass and the thoroughfare. If you don't see it, you will prosper, and you will be ashamed." Compete with Zigu from the countryside."
The picture shows the New Year Lantern Festival held in Xi'an Datang Paradise during the Spring Festival.
Photo by Zhang Yichen
Since ancient times, every festival must have a holiday. The Han Dynasty had a holiday on the Lantern Festival, and the Tang Dynasty was no exception.
At the time of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the Lantern Festival had already had a three-day holiday.
That is to say, during the period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and the two nights before and after, people can play and enjoy lanterns all night to celebrate.
In the Ming Dynasty, the lantern appreciation period was directly extended to 10 days, which is also the longest lantern festival in China.
Lanterns in the ancient county of Taiyuan.
Photo by Wei Liang
In the evolution of more than a thousand years, the northern and southern lanterns have also formed their own different styles.
The shape and style of the northern lanterns are more formal and rough, while the southern lanterns are more diverse and free, with more complicated craftsmanship and a stronger atmosphere of life.
The picture shows the Taijiang dragon dance and booing flowers in Taijiang, Guizhou.
Photo by Feng Guiju
Taking the coast of Zhejiang as an example, most of the local Lantern Festival lanterns are "fish lanterns", with lampshades inspired by various fish.
In Shanghai, it is mostly "rabbit lamp", which means that rabbits are gentle and have strong reproductive ability, and they look forward to a prosperous population.
Rabbit lights.
Photo provided by the interviewee
The Lantern Festival lanterns are actually a form of lantern development. As far as the round lanterns that often appear on festive occasions are concerned, their roots can be traced back to the ancient Chinese worship of the sun, birds and egg-laying myths.
Chen Qinjian believes that the worship of "circle" contains people's deep recognition of life. "Circle things have a reproductive meaning, giving 'prosperity', or the continuation of life. In fact, we are unconsciously inheriting the ancient concept of birth and death of offspring." The reverence for the breathing life is a kind of collective unconscious inheritance.”
The picture shows villagers in Shangrao, Jiangxi Province, preparing for the bench dragon dance.
Photo by Ai Shimin
Xiong Yuezhi, a researcher at the History Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, commented in an interview, "The Lantern Festival is a bright color in traditional folk customs. This kind of annual custom is externally manifested in lanterns, lantern groups, and performing arts activities. It looks dazzling and lively. , essentially carrying and conveying history, culture and emotion through content with a sense of ritual.”
Folklore performances are held in the ancient county.
Photo courtesy of Taiyuan Ancient County
In Chen Qinjian's view, the appreciation of lanterns during the Lantern Festival is an extremely important sense of festival ritual, "the sense of festival ritual goes deep, the existence of this culture represents a cultural identity, and furthermore, it represents the cultural personality of the Chinese people , cultural humanity, and cultural identity are composed of countless such cultural activities or folk activities with Chinese characteristics."
Today, how are you going to "make the Lantern Festival"?