The first full-moon night after the Spring Festival is Yuanxiao Festival. “Yuan” means the first lunar month, “Xiao” meaning night. Yuanxiao Festival is also known as Lantern Festival for the main activity of this festival is watching lanterns at night, or the Upper Yuan Festival as it falls on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which is known as Upper Yuan (the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month and the fifteenth day of the tenth lunar month are known as Middle Yuan and Lower Yuan).
If the Spring Festival is a festival for reunion, then Lantern Festival is a carnival. As the saying goes: “Celebrating Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month” highlights the whole tone of celebration. Different from Spring Festival, when people stay at home, on the day of Lantern Festival, people will throng the streets, set off fireworks, watch lanterns, take
part in the Yangko dance, guess the meaning of lantern riddles, as well as walk on stilts, perform the boat, dragon and lion dance, etc. The streets are full of excitement.
There are a variety of folk legends about the origin of Lantern Festival, two of which are famous.
One is that, long time ago, a celestial goose accompanying the Jade Emperor was killed by the people for destroying their crops. The Jade Emperor was so annoyed that he ordered the troops from heaven to set fire to the Earth before and after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The Jade Emperor’s kind-hearted daughter secretly spread the news to the Earth, allowing wise men to propose countermeasures. On the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first lunar month, each household hung up red lanterns and each person carried a lantern and set off fireworks and crackers. When he saw from Heaven that the Earth was filled with light of fire, the Jade Emperor thought he had avenged the celestial goose. In order to commemorate this successful outsmarting of the Jade Emperor, the people ever since have used lanterns and streamers as decorations on every fifteenth day of the first lunar month and so the Lantern Festival came into being.