天燈 Sky Lantern
You may have heard of Chinese lantern festivals before, and you may even have seen pictures of children holding up beautifully designed lanterns on the lantern festival. But what I am going to introduce to you today is not your regular kid-size lantern, but another curious form of folk ritual that involves giant sky-lanterns. On Jan.15 on the lunar calendar, a town called Pinshi in the Taipei county would celebrate the occasion by lighting hundreds of gigantic lanterns and send them off high into the sky. They are called “the light of hope”. Of course, as everything in China, it has a history behind it.
In the early days, people at Pinshi used to suffer from constant attacks by gangs of robbers. In order to protect the elderly, the young, and the women, the villagers would send them high into the mountains to hide, while the men stayed behind to protect their homes. Then after the robbers had left, they would light a sky lantern and send it flying in the sky to let their loved ones know that it was safe to come home. That is why the sky lantern has become a symbol of peace and security.
As time goes by, nowadays there are no more robbers, but people at Pinshi still keep the tradition of lighting sky lanterns to pray for fortune and health every Lantern Festival.
You may have heard of Chinese lantern festivals before, and you may even have seen pictures of children holding up beautifully designed lanterns on the lantern festival. But what I am going to introduce to you today is not your regular kid-size lantern, but another curious form of folk ritual that involves giant sky-lanterns. On Jan.15 on the lunar calendar, a town called Pinshi in the Taipei county would celebrate the occasion by lighting hundreds of gigantic lanterns and send them off high into the sky. They are called “the light of hope”. Of course, as everything in China, it has a history behind it.In the early days, people at Pinshi used to suffer from constant attacks by gangs of robbers. In order to protect the elderly, the young, and the women, the villagers would send them high into the mountains to hide, while the men stayed behind to protect their homes. Then after the robbers had left, they would light a sky lantern and send it flying in the sky to let their loved ones know that it was safe to come home. That is why the sky lantern has become a symbol of peace and security.As time goes by, nowadays there are no more robbers, but people at Pinshi still keep the tradition of lighting sky lanterns to pray for fortune and health every Lantern Festival.