The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival. The day is the first day of the full moon since the beginning of the new year. On that day, family members gather to have a brilliant night, so ancient people also call it Shangyuan Festival, Yuan night or festival of light. The custom of joyfully celebrating the festival of lanterns began from the Han Dynasty and became popular in the Tang and Song Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, people would decorate their houses with lanterns and worship ancestors for one night on that day. In the period when Tangxuanzong (an emperor in Tang Dynasty), would perform the activities for three nights. Beginning with the Song Dynasty, the practice extended to five nights, and what a joyful scene!

Traditional customs during the Lantern Festival are to eat rice glutinous balls and rice cakes and strike the peace drum, while what draws the most attention is the display of festive lanterns of various kinds. Tradition says that the origin of festival of lanterns has a lot to do with the Hanming emperor, who decided to light the lanterns and pray to Buddha on the night of the Lantern Festival in order to advocate Buddhism. After that, people vied in imitating the activities of the emperor and formed a fixed custom as time went on, and even the guessing of riddles written on lanterns and other games were developed from that time. All kinds of feastive lanterns made by skilled craftmen demonstrated the clever and deft abilities of the Chinese people.

The origin of Lantern Festival (15th of the 1st lunar month).

According to the legend, the Lantern Festival began from the Han Dynasty onwards. After the death of Liu Ying, the Hanhui emperor, Lu the queen had usurped power. When the Lu the queen died, Zhou Bo, Cheng Ping and other persons who wanted to defend for the Han Dynasty very much, made every effort to get rid of those people who had helped Lu and to support Liu Heng as the their master, who became the Hanwen emperor (from 179 B.C to 157 B.C). The Wen emperor collected widely the proposals of his officials, implenmented benevolent political policies, rescued people from disasters and helped the poor. With such wise management, the Han Dynastry became strong and prospous again. In order to celebrate that the honorable activities of Zhou Bo, Cheng Ping and other persons who put down the rebellion by Lu and her supporters (the day was just the fifteenth day of 1st lunar month), the Wen emperor would go out of the palace wearing plain-clothes to enjoy himself with the people to show rememberance on that night each year. In acient China, "ye"and "xiao" had the same meaning of night and the zhengyue was also called yuanyue (the 1st lunar month), so the Hanwen emperor ordered the fifteenth day of the 1st lunar month be the Yuanxiao Festival (Lantern Festival).