The Lantern Festival

In Shanghai, the Spring Festival wraps around on the 15th day of the New Year with the celebration of the Lantern Festival. This has got to be my favorite of the Chinese celebrations. People have spent the past 2 weeks creating intricate paper lanterns, which they will hang outside on the 15th evening. These lanterns may have riddles, and families walk the streets looking at lanterns and solving riddles. What fun already, right?

Add in the fireworks that occur at any occasion in China. This time they centered around 8pm on Sunday night, and so Lilly and I enjoyed a firework-chasing walk through the neighborhood. Our neighbors shot off loud firecrackers in front of our house, and Lilly and I watched as they did their best to keep their dog from attacking the lit fuse. We walked down the street, watching boys light fuses of fireworks perched on top of the railings. We stood across the street from a shop keeper who must have lit 30 fireworks the style of a fountain of sparks - it was beautiful. We chased a few bright lights around for the best view, and we enjoyed watching cars swerve to avoid the fireworks exploding in the middle of the street. Certainly a festive walk!

We were further able to enjoy this festival by an invitation to the West Nanjing Road Community Center's Lantern Festival Celebration. It seems that this very Chinese community center has an administrator with an interest in sharing Chinese culture with expatriates, and so this festival was broadcast all through the Shanghai expat networks. The girls received free gifts at the door - noisemakers and stuffed dragons. We watched a dragon dance - the type where the lead dancer wears holds a dragon head over her own head, and the second person becomes the back legs. The dancing, jumping and posturing of each makes for a lively dance and a really interesting dragon. A hip-hop troupe of 8 year olds performed, and a large group of middle aged women danced with drums and flags before we reached naptime and headed home.

Sadly, I did not bring my camera to this awesome event. But 50% of the Chinese people did, and most of them have quite a few shots of my children now on their memory cards. We seemed more popular than the dancers!