关于元宵节的英语精选作文：The Lantern Festival

关于元宵节的英语精选作文：The Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar
month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar.
As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become
a festival with great significance.
This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout
the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China.
One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or
remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns
to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so
he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples
to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite
developed into a grand festival among common people and its
influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.
Till today, the lantern festival is still held each year
around the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are
hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children
will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the
streets, extremely excited.
Guessing lantern riddles is an essential part of the
Festival. Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and

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post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the
riddles, they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owners
to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little
gift. The activity emerged during people's enjoyment of
lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is
interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all
social strata.
People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so
it is also called the Yuanxiao Festival. Yuanxiao also has
another name, tangyuan. It is small dumpling balls made of
glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste,
jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil
as filling.
Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet
and delicious. What's more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar
pronunciation with tuanyuan, meaning reunion. So people eat
them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.
In the daytime of the Festival, performances such as a dragon
lantern dance, a lion dance, a land boat dance, a yangge dance,
walking on stilts and beating drums while dancing will be staged.
On the night, besides magnificent lanterns, fireworks form a
beautiful scene. Most families spare some fireworks from the

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Spring Festival and let them off in the Lantern Festival. Some
local governments will even organize a fireworks party. On the
night when the first full moon enters the New Year, people
become really intoxicated by the imposing fireworks and bright
moon in the sky.
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来源网络整理，仅供参考