Hang High the Lanterns

The Other China

張燈結綵

The Fifteenth Day of the First Month of the New Year 正月十五 marks the first full moon of the Lunisolar New Year. Generally called Yuanxiao 元宵, literally ‘First Evening’, it is also the height of the Lantern Festival 燈節, one traditionally celebrated from the Hanging of Lanterns 上燈 on the Thirteenth Day of the First Month to the Taking Down of Lanterns 落燈 on the Eighteenth Day of the First Month. The First Evening is also variously called: 上元節、小正月、元夕、小年 and 春燈節.

In 2026, the 3rd of March marks the end of the Lunisolar New Year celebrations which began with the last day of the old year, New Year’s Eve 除夕, the 16th of February. Celebrations on First Evening vary widely in style but they generally feature both domestic and public displays of lanterns 燈飾, which are supposed to mimic the full moon, and the eating of yuanxiao 元宵 (in the north) or tangyuan 湯圓 (in the south) — ball-shaped dumplings made from glutinous rice flour with a black sesame filling. They are cooked and served in a sweet soup or syrup made from the water they are boiled in. The shape and massing of Yuanxiao in a bowl is supposed to symbolise completion, togetherness and harmony.

On the occasion of Lantern Festival in 2017, the first year of the first presidency of Donald Trump in the United States, we wrote that:

These weeks since the Chinese New Year also mark an extraordinary period for the world since the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America on the 20th of January. Turning modern tradition on its head, all that was new seems old again. Well indeed may one hope that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. What was a truism for China under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party and its Chairman of Everything Xi Jinping, now seems to hold equally true for an America in the grip of Trump and the Republican Party.

Sic tempus, sic mores.

Even as China Heritage tracks the second year of the second Trump presidency in our Contra Trump series during the 2026-2027 Year of the Horse, we continue to celebrate The Other China.

In Snakes Retreat with the Advent of The Horse we marked the New Year with the artist Lois Conner, a collaborator whose work also features in China Heritage as masthead for The Year of the Horse. Here, as the New Year festivities come to an end with the Lantern Festival, we find solace in the art and poetry of Lao Shu 老樹.

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The Chinese rubric of this chapter in The Other China — 張燈結綵 zhāng dēng jié cǎi, hang up lanterns and colourful decorations — appears in Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義, a novel written by Luo Guanzhong 羅貫中 in the late-Ming dynasty:

告諭城內居民，盡張燈結彩，慶賞佳節。

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
3 March 2026
Blood Moon

Fifteenth Day of the
First Month of the
Year of the Horse

丙午馬年
正月十五
元宵節

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The Year of the Horse in China Heritage:

好好吃飯，愛惜自己。
處世平靜，心中歡喜。

Be sure to eat well,
take care of yourself.
Keep calm at all times:
happiness lies within.

— 正月十二，張燈結彩，《老樹日曆》，2026年2月28日

***

朋友久未見，坐對卻少言。
茶淡無盡意，簾青幾重山。

It’s been ages since we got together, but
there’s not much to say when we do meet.
This bland tea can convey only so much,
through the screen there’s layered mountains.

— 正月十四，萬事齊備|元宵|試燈，《老樹日曆》，2026年3月2日

***

There’s always that one tree
waiting for the spring wind.
There’s always that one room
occupied by who knows whom.

— Lao Shu, a record of what I saw on a trip back home during the spring of 2017

— 宜尋找春天蹤跡，《老樹日曆》，2026年2月26日

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上元時節俺就想，能否在遇那姑娘？
燈火闌珊渾不見，一輪明月照大江。

It’s First Evening and what I’m thinking is:
maybe I’ll encounter that young lady again?
Still no sign as the lanterns start to flicker —
the bright moon floating on the river, unmoved.

***