Lantern Festival
Zigong is the originator of the Chinese Lantern Festival - which has been copied in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. As one of the Historical and Cultural Cities of China, Zigong is called "Lantern Town in the South Kingdom". In recent years, although the annual lantern show forces the local residents endure unpredictable and extended blackouts during China's Spring Festival, the lantern festival is a boon for tourism in the remote but tranquil city and generates large revenues for the local government. The pattern of Lantern Show, a paradigm of China's festival economy, has been copied throughout China, which dilutes the uniqueness of Zigong's original version. As a measure to promote the city, the lantern show has already been brought to many cities in mainland China and even southeast Asia throughout of the years.
Since China is on a Lunar calendar - known in the west as the Chinese calendar, Spring Festival - which is also known as Chinese New Year will vary each year on a Gregorian calendar - but is roughly between January 16 and February 19 each year - depending on which of the Twelve earthly branches it is currently.
The Lantern Festival has been going on since the Tang dynasty and gets more elaborate each year and is certainly a sight to behold.
Read more about this topic: Zigong
Famous quotes containing the words lantern and/or festival:
“God shall be my hope,
My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)