Taiwan Today

Lantern Festival events across Taiwan are celebrations of color and creativity.

Lantern Festival has been observed on the 15th day of the first lunar month for more than two millenniums. Descriptions of celebrations are found in various historical records and literary works, though the origins of the holiday are shrouded in myth.

Launched in 1990, Taiwan Lantern Festival is the largest of numerous events held across the country to mark this occasion. While the first 11 editions were in Taipei City, it has since been staged in a different location each year. The 2018 festival took place over 24 days in southern Taiwan’s Chiayi County and attracted more than 10 million visitors.

Traditionally, lanterns are themed around the Lunar New Year’s Chinese zodiac animal as well as historical figures and legendary beasts. In recent years, more avant-garde creations have grown in popularity and prominence. Many of the works at Yuejin Lantern Festival in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, for instance, share more in common with installation artworks than conventional designs.

In past agrarian societies, farmers would mark the festival by dancing in their fields at night while holding torches to chase away insects and other pests. As the official end of Lunar New Year, the holiday heralded the arrival of tilling and sowing season. Although this agricultural connection has largely been forgotten, to a great many people Lantern Festival still signals the coming of spring. 

—by Jim Hwang