Lantern Festival

Chinese New Year is closely followed by the Lantern Festival. This year, the festival falls on Monday, February 5^th. The biggest celebration, in my town, is held at the Confucius Temple. Remember: “big” means something very different in China. The turnout was expected to be 500,000 people, based on last year’s attendance, with 5000 police officers on hand for crowd control! That is just too big a crowd for me, so I went the night before with my friend and native of Nanjing, Ray.

In ancient times, Chinese scholars would visit Confucius Temple to pray before taking the National Exam, the qualifying exam to work as part of the government. Today, many students can be seen following the same ritual: praying at the temple before a big exam at school. Ray advised that I do the same before I take exams when I start to study Chinese at Nanjing University this fall. This lantern display shows students in prayer:

I saw my first Chinese puppet show: a narration and act of the story of the Monkey King.

 The night ended with watching some fireworks light the sky. The Chinese really, really love fireworks! Case in point: the next morning began by hearing more fireworks, since Monday was the official Lantern Festival holiday. The fireworks started at 7am and continued for a full hour! Fortunately, I was already well adjusted to 7am wake up calls from the construction that has been regularly beginning at that time, right outside my window. And fortunately, I am a morning person anyway!

Fireworks continued in random intervals throughout the day, and then went on "full blast" for most of the evening. A good end to my first Lantern Festival!