Can I celebrate the New Year during the Lantern Festival? What are the "special" activities during the Lantern Festival?

Can I celebrate the New Year during the Lantern Festival?

You can pay New Year’s greetings on the Lantern Festival, and you can pay New Year’s greetings before the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese festival that has existed as early as the Qin Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. According to historical records and folk legends, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month was already taken seriously in the Western Han Dynasty. The activity of Emperor Wu of Han offering sacrifices to "Taiyi" (Taiyi: the god who dominates everything in the universe) in Ganquan Palace on the first night of the first lunar month was regarded by later generations as a precursor to the worship of gods in heaven on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Yuanxiao originally meant "the night of the Lantern Festival". Because the main activity of the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is eating glutinous rice balls and admiring the moon at night, the name of the festival later evolved into "Lantern Festival". On the night of the Lantern Festival, the streets and alleys are decorated with lights, people admire the lanterns, guess lantern riddles, and eat Lantern Festival rice dumplings, bringing the celebrations that began on New Year's Eve to another climax and becoming a custom passed down from generation to generation. When the Lantern Festival was in its early stages of being a festival, it was only called the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the middle of the first lunar month, or the full moon. After the Sui Dynasty, it was called Yuan Xi or Yuan Ye. Influenced by Taoism in the early Tang Dynasty, it was also called Shangyuan, and it was occasionally called Yuanxiao in the late Tang Dynasty. But since the Song Dynasty, it has also been called Dengxi. In the Qing Dynasty, it was called the Lantern Festival. Abroad, the Lantern Festival is also known as The Lantern Festival.

What are the "special" activities during the Lantern Festival?

South Korea: Don’t eat Yuanxiao, eat grains

Japan: Enjoying Lanterns in Chinatown

North Korea: Welcome the moon on the 15th day of the first lunar month

Southeast Asia: Lion dance parade with Nanyin

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