Lantern Festival 2008 [元宵节快乐]
In Chinese traditional holidays, first there is the Spring Festival [春节] held at the 1st January of the Lunar calendar where people celebrate with fireworks and firecracker (the whole night!); then at the 5th there is the ceremony to welcome the God of Prosperity [迎财神], with fireworks and firecracker again; and finally as a closure of the Spring Festival holidays, there’s the Lantern Festival [元宵] at the 15th January where people participate in lantern design competition, usually held at public spaces such as park or temple. Afterward, everyone is expected to fully get back to their usual life routine.
I was badly ill during the whole week of Spring Festival, so I didn’t go out for photo during the first two celebrations of the year. For the Lantern Festival, I went to the Yu Yuan garden [豫园] of Shanghai, located at the famous City God Temple [城隍庙] area. It was a warm spring night, clear sky where I could see a sharp full moon. By the way, the Lunar calendar is based on moon rotation around Earth, at every 15th of the month, it’s always a full moon.
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At my arrival, the area was already packed with over 50,000 people by my rough estimate, in a space of roughly 1 km²! I had a hard time finding a good spot to snap a few shots. Then I bought ticket to go into the actual garden, and there were even more people inside! I manage to walk straight with my fat camera bag hung at my tummy and a tripod at my back. I never had a chance to use the tripod as it was hard enough just to stand still without people pushing me left and right at every few seconds, everywhere I went.
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The new year atmosphere was present, thanks to the traditional new year songs that were played over and over, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was stuck in the People Square subway station during 2 full hours… Nevertheless, I manage to shoot over 70 photos, all hand held, mostly at 1/30s – 1/60s and ISO 800, with my Canon 20D and the EF-S 17-85mm lens. To my surprise at home, those photos were actually pretty sharp and noiseless, and the moon was HUGE and SHARP! This gotta be the best moon shot I’ve taken so far!
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Growing up at Vietnam, the Lantern Festival that I knew was held during the Mid-Autumn Festival [中秋节], where litterary every yound kids play with lanterns, and most of them managed to get their lantern burned that night or the next morning because of the wind… I never knew Lantern Festival was held at the 15 January until now. Then, again at Vietnam, we ate Tang yuan [汤圆], which is some sort of glutinous rice ball with sweet stuff inside, during the Winter solstice [冬至] while in China people eat dumpling [饺子] at that time. And that was not just my family, but the whole Chinese community at Ho Chi Mind city do the same. Clearly that has been some alteration of festival dates and habits of the Chinese immigrants to South East Asia, either by seasonal convenience or by other unknown factor. So everyday I’ve to re-learn back the authentic Chinese tradition, which is one of the reason I want to come to live in China for a while.
Click here to see the entire album.