Chinese Lantern Festival » Chinese Lantern Knowledge

The cultural characteristics of Chinese lanterns

Risa Harada — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:57:19 +0000

In modern time, the Chinese lanterns is not easy to use that kinds of lamps, but why we still use Chinese lanterns in many places? The cultural characteristics of Chinese lanterns is the reason.

Maybe some one will ask that what’s the cultural characteristics of Chinese lanterns?

When we talk about Chinese lanterns, we will certainly think about the red color and festive atmosphere. The following tips can help you know the cultural characteristics of Chinese lanterns.

Why did most of Chinese lanterns use red color?

Reason one: Chinese lanterns were used in Chinese traditional festive holiday, people believed that red color can expel evil from their home.

Reason two: In China and many country red color is a symbol of auspiciousness and prosperity of the family.( On the contrary, if the lanterns were used in the funeral, the color will use white)

red Chinese lantern

The pride of the Chinese nation

Chinese lantern crafts is very famous in the world, many kinds of exquisite lanterns in the world were made by Chinese people. As China began to grow, people began to require spiritual satisfaction. Chinese lanterns as a very proud culture, can give the people which they need. It can embodies the wisdom of the Chinese people.

lantern complex in lantern festival

Fantastic visual

Chinese lanterns become more and more rich in visual enjoyment, it is full of culture content, it is often used as cultural exchange programs between countries to enhance friendship between the peoples of two countries, so you can view many Chinese Lantern Festival held in other countries outside China.

lantern festival in Canada

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Lantern Festival Activities

Risa Harada — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:19:16 +0000

In Chinese Lantern Festival, there are so many folk activities in this Festival not only watching the lantern display, now I’ll introduce most of the Lantern Festival activities often show in the Lantern Festival for you.

1. Giant Lantern Display

As we know that the most important activity is watching the lantern display. I have post many information about it, in this post I’ll not talk too much about it.

Lantern Display

2.Palm fibre weaving

Palm fibre weaving can make many great folk crafts which were made with hemp palm, like the bird, grasshopper and so on, it often exhibitis in the lantern display ground, people will watch the craftsmen’s show, and buy his crafts.

Palm fibre weaving bird

3. A drum-shaped rattle for children

Many people will buy a rattle drum for their children in Lantern Festival, When the seller keeps rocking their drum, the children often ask their mother for this gift.

drum-shaped rattle

4. Embroidery

In the Lantern Festiva facts, I have said the Chinese Lantern Festival is Chinese Valentine’s Day, in the ancient, if a girl is not good at embroidry, she would be thought that she is not a good wife, so even in the recent, this traditional craft is often exhibition in the Lantern Festival, people often buy a animal embroidery of this year for the next year’s auspicious.

Embroidery

5.Dragon and Phoenix Calligraphy

A painting viewed from afar looks like a dragon and phoenix, but nearly see is your name, some folk calligrapher often show their high-level skill in the Lantern Festival, if you paid some money, they will creat a unique Dragon and Phoenix Calligraphy with your name for you, in this year, a disabled person uses his mouth to creat a paining for me.

Dragon and Phoenix Calligraphy

6. Chinese Kungfu show

Chinese Kungfu show also know as the Chinese martial arts, it is originated from Chinese ancient ancestors’ productive labor . It takes skill-hit as the main content and wrestling as the movement form which highlights Chinese traditional sport items. It is a valuable cultural heritage that the Chinese people accumulated for a long time. In the picture, you can see some Shaolin disciplesshow their Kungfu in the Lantern Festival.

Kung fu show

7. Dragon Dance

Dragon is a very important and holy animal for Chinese, the Dragon Dance originated during the Han Dynasty, it is a form of traditional dance and performance in Chinese Lantern Festival. It likes the lion dance which is most often seen in festival celebrations.

dragon dance

8. Lion Dance

Lion dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture, in which performers mimic a lion’s movements in a lion costume. The lion dance is often mistaken as dragon dance. An easy way to tell the difference is that a lion is operated by two people, while a dragon needs many people. Also, in a lion dance, the performers’ faces are covered, since they are inside the lion.

lion dance

9.Acrobatics

Chinese acrobatics performance already had a more than 2,500 years’ history in China, it’s as a folk art to display human body skills . It often show with other art like song , dance , Zaju , puppet etc in the Lantern Festival’s arena.

acrobatics

10.Opera Show

Opera Show is originated from primitive songs and dances. Through a long-time development and absorbtion of many factors like folk dance, performance, Kungfu and other art. It forms an artistic expression form of using multiway to express life and build personages. Chinese opera show embodies the unique opera ascetic ideas and artistic features of Chinese nation.

opera show

11.Face Changing Show

Sichuan opera is the operatic-tune art form with Sichuan charateristics. Face changing and spitting fire are the two most common and influential traditional stunts in Sichuan opera performance art. Its basic goal lies in helping to portray personages’ image .

Face Changing show

12.Firecrackers

Lantern Festival is a happy holidays, surely it can not out of firecrackers, especially the celebration of Chinese New Year and Lantern Festival by Chinese communities around the world.

Firecrackers

13. Guessing the Lantern riddles

People in the festival must guess the answer from a word , a poem or a phrase, guessing the riddles are as hard as fighting with a tiger, so that lantern riddles have another name - ‘lantern tigers’ .

Lantern Riddles

14.Puppet Show

The Chinese Puppet Show is known as mu’ouxi (play of wooden dolls), in the country, which has its roots in remote time. Traditionally, Puppet Show comes in three forms: the rod-top puppet, the marionette or string puppet and the glove or hand puppet. In China, the rod-top puppet is the most popular show.

Puppet Show

15.Shadow Theater

Shadow Theater is the appellation of shadow show and its personages products ( including props and sceneries) . Chinese Shadow Theater, which is simple and elegant with profound national flavour, has the value both for appreciation and reservation.

Shadow Theater

After all, I think you can know about the Lantern Festival is a carrier of culture, not only Chinese folk activities can show in this festival, anything you can think will very easy join the Lantern Festival. So, When we creat the Lantern Festival in other country, China and other country’s culture and activities can very easy hybrid.

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A glass bottles lantern – Kylin Presenting Luck

Risa Harada — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:16:52 +0000

Kylin Presenting Luck is a lantern sets on Zigong Lantern Festival, Zigong Lantern Festivals facture unigue materials in manufacfuring. The Kylins in different manner and modelling are, to your surprise, formed by 800,000 glass bottles. It comes true to turn waste into mystery.

Kylin lantern

Kylin Presenting Luck often exhibtioned outside China, it’s very popular in Environmentalists. And it is show in Taiwan Lantern Festival 2010 this year.

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Tortoise Lantern

Risa Harada — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:13:54 +0000

According to an ancient books’ animals, a grand canyon without bottom lay to the East of Bahai sea. The five mountains in the canyon often drifted with the tide. There for, the emperor in the Heaven commanded fifteen giant tortoises to hold them up on the backs. From then on, the countains kept motionless. The Lantern Festival after Song Dynasty took the story into lanterns. Generally, the modelling of this lantern is one giant tortoise accompanied by a Bodhisattva, dragons, phoenixes and cranes. The Chinese Lantern was praised as “the Masterpiece of Lanterns”. The Lantern was of grand momentum and magnificent, composed of 2000 varieties of lights, 26 metres long, 15 metres wide and 13 metres high.

Tortoise Lantern

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Dragon Lantern

Risa Harada — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:34:30 +0000

The Dragon Lantern is a essential element in Chinese Lantern Festival, maybe some Westerns didn’t know why we always make the Dragon lanterns in Chinese Lantern Festival, I think it’s for the cultures of Westerns and Easterns.

The meaning of Dragon is different between Westerns and Easterns

The Dragon is legendary creature, it has different means between the eyes of Chinese and Westerners. In China, Dragon represents the sacred, Chinese believe it can take wealth and prosperity. On the other hand, Westerners often think the Dragon is a evil creature. Today I will talk about the Chinese Dragon Lantern.

The different materials Dragon lanterns in Chinese Lantern Festival

For the Chinese Lanterns Crafts is progressing every year, now Dragon lanterns can made of many kinds of materials, for example, the silk, the papers, the silkworm cocoon, the table tennis ball, the porcelain and so on, You totally can not imagine how many materials can been used to make the Dragon lanterns, I’ll show you some dragon lanterns which we made in the in recent years.

The silkworm cocoon dragon lantern – which was made in Canada Rogers Chinese Lantern Festival 2007 by us, the dragon lantern’s head is made of silk, the Dragon lantern body is use of silkworm cocoon.

The silkworm cocoon dragon lantern

The waste disks Dragon lantern – which was made in Canada Rogers Chinese Lantern Festival 2007 by us too, the Dragon lantern’s head is made of silk, the Dragon lantern body is use of waste disks.

The waste disks Dragon lantern

The porcelain Dragon palace lantern – which was made in Zigong Dinosaur International Lantern Festival by us, the Dragon porcela palace lantern’s is made of porcelain plates, spoons and glass.

The porcelain Dragon palace lantern

The porcelain Dragon lantern head

The porcelain Nice Dragon Wall lantern – which was made in the 16th Zigong Dinosaur International Lantern Festival this year.

one dragon of The porcelain Nice Dragon Wall lantern

The water Dragon lantern – which was made in Beijing Lantern Festival 2006 at the Longtan park by us, the Dragon lantern is made of silk, it can spouts water, and brandishing its claws.

The water Dragon lantern

The Dragon boat lantern - which was made in the 13th Zigong Dinosaur International Lantern Festival, all use of silk, Dragon boat lantern is very popular in evey cities’ parks, many parks want to create a draon boat in their lake of park.

The Dragon boat lantern

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Chinese fancy lantern and the ACG 2

Risa Harada — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:42:48 +0000

In Chinese fancy lantern and the ACG 1, I have told about the flexibility of wire is not enough to express a complex cartoon character face. Then, how to make a complex cartoon character face or human face in the lantern festival? The answers are two ways:

1.Use a special FRP material which is translucent.

Merit: Can easliy finished the complex face or other complex shape.
Demerits: It’s not the traditional material of making the lantern, cultural connotation is very low.
Picture for example: You can see that the fairs faces were translucent.
FRP material

2.Using high-level shape benchworker and art designing try to finished it.

Merit: Keeping the Chinese lantern original crafts, it will make many amazing lanterns.
Demerits: The product depends on the Chinese Lantern craftsmen, it’s cost much more money than using the FRP material.
Picture for example: This was from Changfeng park of Shanghai Lantern Festival when we were in partnership with Disney.
High-level Chinese lantern

As crafts of making Chinese lantern progresses, I think there wouldl have much more ways to solve this problem.

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Special Material Lanterns in the Lantern Festival

Risa Harada — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:45:30 +0000

As we know, the Chinese lanterns were made of silk or paper usually, and in the past few years, more and more material were used in the Chinese lanterns. especially in the Lantern Festival. They are so beautiful and amazing.

I share some special material lanterns in the Lantern Festival here.

1 The porcelain material dragon lantern

The porcelain material dragon lantern

2 The porcelain material peacock lantern

The porcelain material peacock lantern

3 The porcelain material crap lantern

The porcelain material carp lantern

4 The porcelain material big palace lantern

The porcelain material big palace lantern

5 The cocoon material phoenix lantern

The cocoon material phoenix lantern

6 The cocoon material dragon lantern

The cocoon material dragon lantern

7 The art neon light

The art neon light

8 The compact disc material phoenix lantern

The compact disc material phoenix lantern

9 The compact disc material hawk lantern

10 The waste bottle material Kirin lantern

The waste bottle material Kirin lantern

11 The glass material Xinghai well lantern

The glass material Xinghai well lantern

12 The FRP glass material Avalokitesvara lantern

The FRP glass material Avalokitesvara lantern

art

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Make a Chinese fancy lantern for Lantern Festival

Risa Harada — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:03:02 +0000

The Chinese Lantern Festival is coming, maybe you want to make a Chinese traditional fancy lantern for celebrating the Chinese Lantern Festival.

Here has two parts of a detailed video about it, it’s a standard course. I’m sure it can help you, only that the video speeking in Chinese Mandarin, despite that I think the video scene is very enough.

fancy lantern

I would like to translate all the commentary for you, but my English is so poor that I can’t complete the whole work very well by myself. Too many professional jargon may smashed my head against the wall I really don’t know how to translate them, maybe in English these words does not exist.

Then I’ll try to translate each entry in the video, I’m sure you can follow the steps and video finish a Chinese traditional fancy lantern. If you have any question, you can leave your comment. Thank you.

Part1:Seven main steps of Making a Chinese traditional fancy lantern

Preparation of wood materials
Building the frame
Paperhanging on the frame
Decorative your fancy lantern with paper-cutting
Assembling the frame
Installing the string which hang the fancy lantern
Place candle inside the fancy lantern

ZD YouTube FLV Player

If you can read Chinese character that would be so nice, here is the Chinese character commentary. Click here to down load the Chinese character commentary about the steps of making a Chinese fancy lantern

Part2: How to make the large-size fancy lantern

The Preparation of metallic materials
Building the frame
Paperhanging on the frame
Decorative the finished lantern

ZD YouTube FLV Player

Click here to down load the Chinese character commentary about How to make the large-size fancy lantern

You can also read more about

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Chinese fancy lantern and the ACG 1

Risa Harada — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:23:15 +0000

My job is about the Chinese fancy lantern fair, and my hobby is ACG. What is the ACG, that include anime comic and games called cartoon. I always want to add many ACG element into the Lantern Festival.

But it’s not easy to do it, the reason is the step of making the Chinese fancy lantern – Modeling and welding. As we know, the Chinese Lantern displays are modeling and welding with the wire,(the steps in the Chinese Lantern craft) but the flexibility of wire is not enough to express a complex cartoon character face. Only that round and square faces can easy to make, for example Kitty, Gundam,and so on. May some one ask that if you must make a complex face, how to make it in the lantern festival?

It’s time to sleep, I’ll talk about it tomorrow.

Doraemon lantern Japan

gundam lantern Taiwan

kitty lantern Singapore

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Chinese Lantern Festival 2010 date

Risa Harada — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:56:36 +0000

The Chinese new year Festival is coming , I have seen many people used google to find that ‘Chinese Lantern Festival 2010 date ‘ , I think it is not easy to get clear date from Chinese lunar calendar for a foreigner. The date of Chinese Lantern Festival 2010 is 2010 February 28 , I hope it can help you. You also can visited When is the lantern festival to get the Chinese Lantern Festival date of other years.

If you have Interesting about Chinese Lantern Festival pictures or video, you

Chinese calendar

can click to view:

More details about Chinese Lantern Festival picture
More details about Chinese Lantern Festival video