Lantern Fair
01 · Historical Records
The Lantern Festival is also known as the Festival of Lights. The custom of lighting lanterns at Yuanxiao (the fifteenth night of the first lunar month) originated in the Han dynasty, developed further during the Tang and Song dynasties, and by the Ming and Qing periods lantern fairs across the country had reached their peak.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The lantern fair is a traditional popular festive celebration of the Chinese people. It is widespread throughout the country and is also quite prevalent in overseas Chinese communities. Lantern fairs are mostly held during the Lantern Festival period, though some places hold them on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month; the character of the fairs differs from region to region. According to traditional custom, on the night of the full moon on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, people hang and light colorful lanterns of every kind, while holding celebrations such as viewing, admiring and competing with lanterns, in prayers for family reunion, longevity and abundant harvests. Centered on the lantern fair, localities have developed a series of distinctive Yuanxiao Festival customs, such as guessing lantern riddles, eating yuanxiao (sweet rice dumplings) and walking off the hundred ailments. Over time, Lantern Festival activities have grown ever richer, and in many places traditional folk performances such as dragon lantern dances, lion dances, stilt walking, land-boat dancing and yangge (rice-sprout song) dancing, Taiping drum playing and taige (carried platforms) have been added to the festivities, making the lantern fairs still more lively and exuberant. It is composed of three parts — the Ullambana lantern fair, the Lantern Festival ice lanterns and the Lantern Festival flower lanterns — and is mainly handed down in the Bazhou area of Hebei. The Ullambana lantern fair, also called the Zhongyuan lantern fair, is held on the evening of the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month each year, when fishermen release river lanterns onto the water to mourn the deceased and pray for the souls of the departed. The ice lantern and flower lantern activities are both held during the Lantern Festival period; the entire festival runs five days, from the thirteenth to the eighteenth of the first lunar month. At its earliest, the fair set up in the central square in front of the Laoye Temple at the heart of the street a lamp platform about 2 meters high and roughly 60 square meters in area, popularly known as the 'Ao Mountain' (Aoshan), which was hung with several hundred kinds of selected homemade lanterns. During the Lantern Festival fair, by day more than seventy old folk fair troupes parade through the streets in performance, while theaters, storytelling houses, taverns and teahouses give free performances all day long. At nightfall, the people gather in clouds around the Ao Mountain to view the lanterns and listen to singing, folk artists perform in turn, and everywhere is a hubbub of noise in a scene of bustling prosperity. Since the reform and opening-up, with changes in the local environment and urban construction, the Shengfang lantern fair has added some new forms of performance. The traditional flower lanterns of Shengfang number more than two thousand kinds, with works mainly on subjects such as animals, plants, human figures, utensils, architecture and Buddhist and Daoist deities. These colorful lanterns were produced within a particular regional environment, mode of production and way of life, and set of folk customs. They are made with rigorous technique, fine workmanship and handsome, dignified forms, and their style constitutes a system of its own; some lantern forms are unique and found only in Shengfang — for example, the Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) lantern has several dozen mouths that can open and close at the same time.
The Ullambana lantern meeting
Held on the fifteenth of the seventh month, this part of the fair releases river lanterns for the dead, giving the three-part lantern calendar a funerary register distinct from the New Year parts.
The ao-shan lantern platform
The fair began by raising an ao-shan platform about two metres high and sixty square metres in the square before the old temple, hung with hundreds of locally made lanterns.
Five days of lantern light
The New Year lantern fair runs five days from the thirteenth to the eighteenth of the first month, long enough to develop a full sequence of raising, viewing and closing the lanterns.
Seventy-odd flower societies in the street parade
By day more than seventy folk flower societies parade, with theatres and teahouses performing all through the daylight hours; by night the crowds circle the lantern platform listening to turn-by-turn performers.
The many-mouthed Zhu Bajie lantern
Of two thousand local lantern types, the many-mouthed Zhu Bajie lantern with dozens of jaws opening at once is unique to Shengfang, showing what its lantern frames can mechanically do.
Shengfang lanterns known since the early Ming
Shengfang lantern-making was already known across the Beijing-Tianjin region in the early Ming, and the annual fair gave the craft both a showcase and a market.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The flower lanterns of Shengfang have a long history and were already known in the Beijing-Tianjin and North China region in the early Ming dynasty. The annual Lantern Festival fair fully displays the intelligence, wisdom and creative spirit of the people of Shengfang. It enriches and enlivens the cultural life of the local people during the Spring Festival and has made no small contribution to social stability and harmony and to the transmission and development of traditional folk culture.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair · Lantern Fair.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Shengfang lantern fair is composed of three segments, each with its own season: the Ullambana lantern fair and the Lantern Festival flower lanterns fall one in the seventh month and one in the first month, half a year apart; the Zhongyuan segment is tied to the belief in releasing river lanterns to pray for departed souls, while the first-month segment is pure New Year joy. The two coexist in the same place without being confused, showing that the local lantern culture carries both functions of mourning the dead and praying for a good year. The Lantern Festival fair runs five consecutive days from the thirteenth to the eighteenth of the first month — building the platform on the first day, welcoming the deities on the next, hanging the lanterns on the central days, and dispersing the lamps on the last night; the days are arranged in sequence, so the rhythm of the fair is longer than a mere night of lantern viewing. Flower-lantern making in this area has become a craft that can be taught independently: the subjects are drawn from animals, plants, human figures, utensils, architecture and Buddhist and Daoist deities, and the works number more than two thousand, among them the Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) lantern with several dozen mouths that can open and close simultaneously, a form unique to the locality. Viewing the lanterns merges with the free performances of the folk fairs, storytelling houses and teashops, so the fair is not merely an exhibition of lanterns. In recent years the organization of the fair has changed, shifting from each household making and hanging its own lanterns in a cluster on the square in front of the temple to lantern parades and concentrated displays on a larger scale, and the number of old craftsmen able to complete large lantern sets on their own is declining.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Lin Wenyi 03-1474
- Shao Chuanfu 03-1475
- Kuang Huofa
- Niujunqi
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。