Yuanxiao Festival (yuan xiao jie), takes place at the end of the Chinese New Year Celebration, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The word yuanxiao denotes the first night of the year with a full moon. On that night, streets and squares in cities and towns are festooned with lanterns of all shapes and sizes. This explains why the Yuanxiao Festival is also known as the Lantern Festival.
In ancient times, Chinese women did not have many opportunities to go out of the house. But on Yuanxiao night, young men and women would go out into the streets, look at the lanterns, solve the lantern riddles and, and enjoy a rare chance to mingle freely with one another. This gives a hint as to why it is thought of as the Chinese Valentines Day.
Origins:
According to an ancient Chinese legend, people could see heavenly spirits flying in the sky on the night of the first full moon after the Lunar New Year. To get a better view of these spirits, they would hold torches up to the sky. With the passage of time, torches have been replaced by lanterns.
The custom of hanging lanterns during the Yuanxiao Festival began in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).
It grew into a full-fledged lantern festival in the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581-907 AD). During the
Tang Dynasty, a curfew was imposed in the capital Chang'an (present day Xian), but the Emperor lifted
the curfew for three nights so that the citizens could celebrate Yuanxiao Festival.
For those three precious nights, everybody, from high officials to ordinary commoners, thronged the
streets of Chang'an to look at the Yuanxiao lanterns. The streets were packed with revelers. From then on the scale of Yuanxiao celebrations became larger and grander.
Lanterns:
Lanterns are a major component of Yuanxiao celebrations. On this night, lanterns of all sorts decorate streets, temples and other public places.
Traditional lanterns are constructed from bamboo strips. They can take a myriad of forms, but they generally fall into one of two basic categories - Image Lanterns and Story Lanterns. Image Lanterns are depictions of flora and fauna, man and machine. Story Lanterns, on the other hand, depict scenes from popular folklore and historical stories like Madame White Snake, Shepherd Boy and Weaving Girl,Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the like.
Yuanxiao
Besides entertainment and beautiful lanterns, another important part of the Lantern Festival,or Yuanxiao Festival is eating small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour. We call these balls Yuanxiao or Tangyuan. Obviously, they get the name from the festival itself. It is said that the custom of eating Yuanxiao originated during the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the fourth centuty, then became popular during the Tang and Song periods.
The fillings inside the dumplings or Yuansiao are either sweet or salty. Sweet fillings are made of sugar, Walnuts, sesame, osmanthus flowers, rose petals, sweetened tangerine peel, bean paste, or jujube paste. A single ingredient or any combination can be used as the filling . The salty variety is filled with minced meat, vegetables or a mixture.
The way to make Yuanxiao also varies between northern and southern China. The usual method followed in southern provinceds is to shape the dough of rice flour into balls, make a hole, insert the filling, then close the hole and smooth out the dumpling by rolling it between your hands.In North China,sweeet or nonmeat stuffing is the usual ingredient. The fillings are pressed into hardened
cores, dipped lightly in water and rolled in a flat basket containing dry glutinous rice flour. A layer of the flour sticks to the filling, which is then again dipped in water and rolled a second time in the rice flour. And so it goes,
like rolling a snowball, until the dumpling is the desired size.The custom of eating Yuanxiao dumplings remains. This tradition encourages both old and new stores to promote their Yuanxiao products. They all try their best to improve the taste and quality of the dumplings to attract more customers.