February 17, 2011

Happy Lantern Festival.

It's the 15th day on the Chinese lunar calendar. You're meant to eat glutenous rice to (if I remember the story right from Lu Xun) somehow trick the messenger to the gods (like Mercury) to keep his mouth quiet about your goings-on. Once a year, Latern Day, he comes round and then reports, or something. If his mouth is full of sticky rice, then he can't say anything, and that seems the best thing for everyone.

In Nanjing, folks gather around the Confucian Temple by the hundreds, everyone with a red lantern lit with a candle. It's truly something to see. Beijing doesn't seem to have anything like that.