Chinese Lanter Festival

Here is a link to my photos of the festival on facebook and picasa! Check out the huge lanterns covering over 8 hectares of the Chinese Gardens. This year's theme was The World of Legends.

We were supposed to go to see the lanterns in a small group of four people, but in the end we ended up there just by two of us guys but we still had lovely and romantic night, haha! Just to note that it would have been a really nice place to go on for a date...

The Mid-Autumn Festival also known as the Moon Festival is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties. The Chinese festival is very traditional and a great way to celebrate.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the fall harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

• Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
• Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e
• Erect the Mid-Autumn Festival. Hanging lanterns on the bamboo pole and putting them on a high point, such as roofs, trees, terraces, etc.
• Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
• Fire Dragon Dances