MATERIAL

农历正月十五是“元宵节”，又称“花灯节”，很多地方会举办“灯会”，各种各样的灯笼，里面点上蜡烛或电灯，聚集在一起，很是漂亮；大家要吃“元宵”，又称“汤团”来表示生活的美满。过完元宵节，春节就算是过完了，大家又要开始正常的生活。

15 days after the Lunar New Year, there is New Year Festival known as the Lantern Festival. Traditionally, everyone would make a variety of red lanterns, candles, and lamps. Everyone would hold them and play and congregate in the streets. Now, there are usually parades in the streets that have floats decorated in red and with lanterns all over them. The Lantern Festival symbolizes the end of the Spring Festival, and signifies to everyone to resume normal life again.

ANALYSIS

The Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is the biggest and most celebrated traditional Chinese holiday. 15 days after the first day of the lunar calendar, there is another festival known as the Lantern Festival. These lanterns are usually red, which is the most important color in Chinese culture. It symbolizes prosperity, good luck, wealth, and happiness. It is used in almost every big holiday or tradition. In older days, everyone would make the lanterns and candles and come together in the streets to interact with each other. It was a time for all the children to have a free play day and a time for the adults to have some time to talk amongst one another. It symbolizes the end of the Spring Festival. The light from lanterns and candles is supposed to light up the sky, to let the heavens know the festival is over but that China is still as one, praying for the Gods to bless the New Year. It is a last hurrah for the two weeks that the Spring Festival lasts. It lets everyone know that it is time to resume normal life. Firecrackers are sometimes set off as well, to alert the Gods and ancestors that everyone will be returning to school and work, but asking them to keep blessing everyone on Earth with the good luck of the New Year. My informant remembers visiting China once for the duration of the Spring Festival when she was very young and she thought it was a magical time.