The Lantern Festival - A Visual Extravaganza

The Lantern Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar new year, marks the end of the New Year celebrations in Taiwan. In Hsinchu it meant deafening fireworks from every alley and street in the city. Since it was on a weekday this year, Adam and I had to teach and couldn't go to another city to light the paper lanterns that float into the sky like I had hoped to do. Instead, I fought my way through my last class, alternating between trying to speak louder than the fireworks and shaking my head in disbelief that the fireworks were so loud that they were keeping me from teaching. After work we dodged smoke and flames back to the apartment and went up onto the roof to watch the celebration continue.

The next weekend we spontaneously decided to go to Tainan and saw posters all over the city for their lantern festival, which held its final day while we were there. I had seen something about it on television (in Chinese, though, so I didn't really understand), and we decided we should go. As we have found happens with most holidays and sight-seeing spots in Taiwan, everyone descends on the locale at the same time, crowding public transportation and making it far less pleasant for Adam and me. But, as it turns out, this time everyone was right. The lantern festival in Tainan (actually held a 20 minute train ride from Tainan) was a huge food and light spectacular. From the overpass at the train station we could see the expanse of the fair, far larger and grander than we had expected.

The festival was so large that we couldn't possibly see all of it. The maps and information were, of course, in Chinese, but things were definitely organized and grouped into categories. We started with food, getting some great, and not so great, snacks that would typically be found at a night market. While we ate at a large table where small children gawked at us, a huge fireworks display started at the top of the hour, set to music. Luckily we had seats where we could see them while eating and didn't have to push through the crowd.

Next we found an art-y section, with large installation pieces that were all illuminated from the inside, including gigantic clothes hanging on a clothesline and some underwater-ish looking lanterns. After that we moved on to a section that had home-made lanterns that had been submitted for judging. They varied from looking like they were made by small children to looking nearly professional.

In the commercial I had seen on TV there had been a giant rat so next we decided to look for that. It was hard to miss, more that three stories high and between two other monstrous lanterns, the rat even had smaller lanterns inside it that blinked different colors. When we reached the top of the hour again, a dialog began between the huge lantern characters that we didn't understand, but culminated in an ear-splitting organ song that played while the rat began to spew smoke and rotate on its platform. While the song was playing, we also noticed that there was a field of lanterns in rows to our left that lit up and seemed to dance in time to the tune.

Having seen a sign that said “Religious Lanterns,” we next wandered over to see what that might entail. There were lanterns and sections for nearly every major religion, including an enormous Jesus that rotated 360 degrees atop a pavilion that had another Jesus with a flock of animals surrounding him. The Matzu area had smaller figures that waved their arms and turned, and another area had a dragon that you walked through and then stepped over flaming coals as you exited a second dragon head. Adam and I weren't quite sure what the purpose of walking through the dragon was, but we did it anyway. A little extra luck in the new year can't hurt, right? There were so many stands in the religion area we couldn't stop at them all, and we couldn't even identify some of the religions!

Before the clock came around to the top of the hour again Adam and I went back to the field of lanterns so we could stand in them while they blinked. They were amazingly timed and choreographed. After the song that played while the rat turned, the Isla Formosa song was played. Many of you probably aren't familiar with the song that the tourism bureau puts on all of its commercials, but we have heard quite a bit of it here, and were treated to more dancing lights while an 8-minute version played.

At that point we'd spent more than two hours walking in dusty gravel with crowds and decided that, after a quick trip to the bathroom, it was time to return to Tainan. It was easier said than done, though, since we were at the opposite corner of the festival from the train station. Having picked a route back, we then ran into a giant turtle, a lake, a hot air balloon tied to the ground that you could ride about 100 ft. up, and another, bigger, field of lanterns. This larger lantern field had red and yellow lanterns that, from the observation deck provided, spelled out TAIWAN PEACE.

The whole experience was vastly different from anything we could see or do anywhere else in the world and made me appreciate living in Taiwan a little more. It was even worth the pushing and crowding at the train station to go back. Although we took a lot of pictures, like so many other things we've seen and done, the pictures barely do justice to seeing the sights in person.