The Lantern Festival is held on the 15th day of the lunar new year, and is the day that officially marks the end of the Spring Festival celebrations. The festival is a couple thousand years old, and has many legends behind it.
Today, it seems the most important tradition is displaying lanterns. These can be the round red type, or the large, decorative silk ones. At night, you may also see children walking and carrying lanterns. There are also fireworks.
This picture shows both smaller red lanterns in the trees, and a large silk decorative lantern of the God of Wealth, which seems appropriate as this is the area where the job fair is held!
Another tradition is answering riddles. They are usually written on papers and hung with red lanterns. If you can answer one, you usually receive some sort of prize. I wrote about this last year ( http://www.myownchinesebrocade.com/picture-a-day-1/2016/2/21/life-in-china-a-picture-a-day-february-21-2016 ) We saw these both at the store where we were shopping today (with a million other people! I was reminded NOT to shop on holidays!) and our housing garden also had a small party and had riddles hung to answer, it looked like crafts for the kids to make, and snacks to eat, including tangyuan.
Riddles outside of RT Mart
Another big tradition is to eat tangyuan, sweet glutinous rice balls. Sometimes, these are plain, and sometimes have fillings, like red bean, peanut, or black sesame. Sharing a bowl of these symbolizes happiness and good luck in the upcoming year for your family. Today, we had lunch out, and were also served a free bowl of tangyuan :-)
Folk dances are also commonly performed on the Lantern Festival, but we didn't have any happening near us. Lion dances, dragon dances and sometimes stilt walking. I've seen them all in the past, and do enjoy them, but unfortunately not this year. So, it's time for the festivities to end, and I must take down my Christmas tree, which I have started turning into a Chinese New Year tree after Christmas. That is definitely NOT a Chinese tradition, but one of my "fusion" traditions!
Rooster on top for the year of the rooster, red envelopes, lots of little red lanterns, including red lantern lights, and other Chinese style ornaments, including the past couple years zodiac signs.