China’s Lantern Festival: A Guide to China's Age-Old Celebration

The Lantern Festival (元宵节, Yuánxiāojié) is a Chinese holiday that traditionally marks the end of the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) celebrations.

Chinese people celebrate this holiday by enjoying colored lantern displays and eating sweet rice balls called tangyuan (汤圆). Read on to learn about the holiday’s history and how it’s celebrated today. For pronunciation help, see CLI’s audio pinyin chart.

The origins and history of the Lantern Festival

Today, the Lantern Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, which generally falls sometime in February or early March.

Lantern Festival celebrations began around 2,000 years ago during the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE). The holiday's exact origins are somewhat unclear.

Several different origin stories are used to explain where the festival came from. We’ve outlined two of the most important ones below.

China's Lantern Festival marks the final day of the 14-day Chinese Spring Festival. It is celebrated on the first full moon of the Chinese New Year.

Origin story one: A Buddhist celebration

One story about the origins of the Lantern Festival says the holiday was created during the time of Emperor Ming of Han (58-75 CE).

At this time, Buddhism was already gaining popularity in China.

Emperor Ming was a supporter of Buddhism and after he learned that it was customary for Buddhist monks to light lanterns on the 15th day of the first lunar month, he decreed that imperial palaces and individual households should do the same. This practice lives on as today’s Lantern Festival.

One Lantern Festival origin story claims that we can find the holiday's roots in early Chinese Buddhism.

Origin story two: A trick played on the Jade Emperor

Another story used to explain the origins of the Lantern Festival has to do with the Jade Emperor. Supposedly, his favorite crane was killed by some villagers, so he decided to take revenge by burning down their village on the 15th day of the first lunar month.

When his daughter heard about her father’s plan, she felt sorry for the hapless villagers and warned them about what was going to happen.

To save themselves, the villagers decided to trick the Jade Emperor into thinking their village was already on fire. They did this by hanging red lanterns, setting off firecrackers and lighting fires throughout the village.

Their plan worked. The Emperor was deceived and the village was saved. Afterwards, residents continued to light firecrackers and hang red lanterns every year to commemorate the event.

Some say the red lanterns used in today’s Lantern Festival celebrations are meant to represent the firecrackers, lanterns and fires used by ancient villagers to deceive the Jade Emperor.

The Lantern Festival through the ages

Whatever its origins, the Lantern Festival soon developed into a popular Chinese holiday. Thanks to Chinese cultural influence on other Asian countries, it didn’t take long for the festival to spread to neighboring nations like Korea and Japan.

The Lantern Festival has been celebrated with various degrees of pomp and circumstance over the years. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), lantern festival celebrations lasted for three days.

They were extended to five days during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE). In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE), celebrations were particularly lengthy, with some lasting a full 10 days.

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The real Chinese Valentine’s Day?

Although it’s no longer the case today, the Chinese Lantern Festival was closely associated with love in ancient China. Some say it was a traditional Chinese Valentine’s Day, a designation now usually reserved for the Qixi Festival.

In ancient times, there were strict curfews that were meant to keep people inside after dark. Due to traditional gender norms, women were also generally expected to stay indoors at all times, regardless of whether or not there was a curfew in place.

During the Lantern Festival, however, curfews were lifted so people could go out at night to view the lanterns. Women were also allowed to leave the house. Thus, the holiday presented a unique opportunity for people of different genders to mingle with each other.

This romantic facet of the Lantern Festival is reflected in the plot of various Chinese operas, as well as in many works of art and literature from both the Song and Ming Dynasties.

In ancient times, the Lantern Festival was a romantic holiday when people of different genders were allowed to mingle freely.

The Lantern Festival today

Today, the Lantern Festival is still popular, but it isn’t one of the seven official public holidays recognized in Mainland China. Therefore, people in China don’t usually get any days off from school or work for this holiday.

Lantern Festivals have been popular in various Asian countries for hundreds of years. Recently, Chinese-style Lantern Festival celebrations have also started popping up in Western countries, including the United States.

Lantern Festival activities

Nowadays, although love is no longer a main theme, the Lantern Festival is still celebrated with a variety of fun activities.

Viewing lantern displays

As its name suggests, the most important part of the Lantern Festival revolves around viewing and interacting with grand displays of Chinese lanterns (灯笼, dēnglóng).

When many people think of Chinese lanterns, they imagine the round, red, basketball-sized lanterns they may have seen hanging outside Chinese restaurants. While that type is common around Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival displays are often much more elaborate.

The lanterns used in modern Lantern Festival displays are often quite elaborate.

Instead of being basketball-sized, some lantern installations are enormous, with larger displays reaching over 65 feet (20 meters) high and 330 feet (100 meters) long.

These lanterns aren’t usually round or red. Instead, they can be built into many colors and shapes, depicting animals and mythological figures, along with giant flowers, trees, and palaces. Dragon-themed lanterns often draw on traditional imagery of Chinese dragons.

Lanterns used in the past were made of paper, silk, bamboo, glass, or jade and lit with candles. Today, most are made with fabric stretched over wire frames and lit with thousands of LED lights.

Iconic floating sky lanterns were once popular, but they’re now considered a fire hazard and have been banned in many places.

Sky lanterns are beautiful but they also pose a fire hazard.

Guessing lantern riddles

Guessing lantern riddles (猜灯谜, cāidēngmí) dates back at least as far as the Song Dynasty, when scholars wrote riddles on small slips of paper and hung them from lanterns for festival attendees to guess.

Today’s lantern riddles are still difficult and often based on complex wordplay. They may even be referred to as “lantern tigers” (灯虎, dēnghǔ).

Sometimes the hint indicates the answer is a Chinese idiom (成语, chéngyǔ). Other riddles might point to a single character, in which case it helps to be familiar with common Chinese characters and stroke order.

Guessing lantern riddles is a popular Lantern Festival activity.

Eating tangyuan

Another popular Lantern Festival activity is eating tangyuan (汤圆, tāngyuán), sweet glutinous rice balls often filled with ingredients like black sesame paste.

Tangyuan are a popular snack during the Lantern Festival.

The pronunciation of tangyuan is similar to 团圆 (tuányuán, “reunion”), and their round shape symbolizes family togetherness. For more culture-and-language context on family, see Chinese proverbs about family.

In southern China, they’re often called tangyuan; in northern China, a similar version is sometimes called 元宵 (yuánxiāo).

Watching dragon and lion dances

In some parts of China, dragon and lion dances are also performed during the Lantern Festival. Dragon dances connect to long-standing beliefs about Chinese dragons as powerful, benevolent, and auspicious creatures.

Lion dances are a popular part of Lantern Festival festivities in some parts of China.

Fireworks

Fireworks (烟火 yānhuǒ, also called 烟花 yānhuā) are common throughout the Spring Festival season. It’s typical to hear fireworks from the start of Chinese New Year right up through the Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the celebrations.

Firework displays help add to the festive atmosphere of China’s Lantern Festival.

Experience the festivities for yourself!

If you happen to be in China during the Lantern Festival, make sure to take time to enjoy the celebrations. Most cities will have lantern displays, so you probably won’t need to travel far to experience the holiday.

Even if you aren’t in China, you may still be able to experience the holiday thanks to Lantern Festival events in cities around the world.

If you're interested in learning more about Chinese traditions, see our Chinese holidays hub, or explore other smaller festivals like the Chinese Summer Solstice or Teachers' Day.

If you're feeling stumped about what to buy your Chinese friends during the holidays, see our Chinese gift recommendations.

Want to experience Chinese holidays while building real-world language skills? Consider joining us to learn Chinese through immersion in Guilin.

Happy Lantern Festival!

Lantern Festival vocabulary

Anne Meredith

Anne Meredith holds an MA in International Politics and Chinese Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). As part of the graduation requirements for the program, Anne wrote and defended a 70-page Master's thesis entirely in 汉字 (hànzì; Chinese characters). Anne lives in Shanghai, China and is fluent in Chinese.