History
| Lantern Festival | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 元宵節 or 上元節 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 元宵节 or 上元节 | ||||||
|
|||||||
| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||
| Chinese | 十五暝 | ||||||
| Literal meaning | fifteenth night | ||||||
|
|||||||
| Vietnamese name | |||||||
| Quốc ngữ | Tết Thượng Nguyên or Tết Nguyên Tiêu | ||||||
The first month of the lunar calendar is called yuanmonth, and in ancient times people called night xiaoin Mandarin; therefore, the day is called Yuan Xiao（元宵） Festival in China and Taiwan/Formosa. The fifteenth day is the first night one can see a full moon in that lunar year. According to East Asian tradition, at the very beginning of a new year, when there is a bright full moon hanging in the sky, there should be thousands of colorful lanterns hung out for people to appreciate. At this time, people will try to solve puzzles on lanterns, eat yuanxiao ('元宵'in Mandarin) (a glutinous rice ball, also known as tangyuan (simplified Chinese: 汤圆; traditional Chinese: 湯圓; pinyin: tāngyuán) and enjoy a family reunion.
Read more about this topic: Lantern Festival
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)