Chinese Festivals of Chinese Calendar

Chinese Festivals

There are several festivals in Chinese Calendar include Chinese Lunar New Year Festival, Lantern Festival, Sweeping Tombs Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese Lover Day Festival, Hungry Ghost Festival, Moon Cake Festival, Double Ninth Festival and Winter Solstice Festival.

Chinese Calendar is a Luna-Solar Calendar which calculated by rotation of moon and sun in a year. The system was introduce in ancient days since sky observation by ancient astrologers of Shang Dynasty but improved since western method was introduced by Xu Guangqi, an astronomer and scientist in Ming Dynasty era, the calendar by Xu Guangqi was rebuilt and revised by Jesuit Missioner Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Jesuit Missioner Ferdinand Verbest in Qing Dynasty era and still remain in use until now.

Chinese Lunar New Year

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Chinese New Year is celebrated in China and in countries and territories with significant Chinese populations, including Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Mauritius, Philippines, and also in China towns elsewhere. Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the lunar new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors.

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good fortune" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity." 

On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is to reconcile, forget all grudges and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.

Mythology

According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian (Chinese: 年; pinyin: Nián). 

Nian would come on the first day of New Year to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, Nian never came to the village again. 

Spring New Year Lantern Festival

(also known as the Yuanxiao Festival in Taiwan or Shangyuan Festival in China; Chap Goh Meh Festival in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore; Yuen Siu Festival in Hong Kong, and "Tết Thượng Nguyên" or "Tết Nguyên Tiêu" in Vietnam; corresponding Japanese event Koshōgatsu)

The Lantern Festival is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar year in the lunar calendar, the last day of the lunisolar lunar New Year celebration. 

During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles on the lanterns (simplified Chinese: 猜灯谜; traditional Chinese: 猜燈謎; pinyin: cāidēngmí). 

It officially ends the Chinese New Year celebrations.

In ancient times, the lanterns were fairly simple, and only the emperor and noblemen had large ornate ones; in modern times, lanterns have been being embellished with many complex designs.

archieve:  wikipedia

Halloween the Real Story

by:  Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety.

It’s true that the ancient Celts of Ireland and Britain celebrated a minor festival on Oct. 31 — as they did on the last day of most other months of the year. However, Halloween falls on the last day of October because the Feast of All Saints or "All Hallows" falls on Nov. 1. The feast in honor of all the saints in heaven used to be celebrated on May 13, but Pope Gregory III (d. 741) moved it to Nov. 1, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter’s at Rome. Later, in the 840s, Pope Gregory IV commanded that All Saints be observed everywhere. And so the holy day spread to Ireland. The day before was the feast’s evening vigil, "All Hallows Even" or "Hallowe’en." In those days, Halloween didn’t have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans.

In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in Southern France, added a celebration on Nov. 2. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. This feast, called All Souls Day, spread from France to the rest of Europe.

So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory? What about those in the other place? It seems Irish Catholic peasants wondered about the unfortunate souls in hell. After all, if the souls in hell are left out when we celebrate those in heaven and purgatory, they might be unhappy enough to cause trouble. So it became customary to bang pots and pans on All Hallows Even to let the damned know they were not forgotten. Thus, in Ireland, at least, all the dead came to be remembered — even if the clergy were not terribly sympathetic to Halloween and never allowed All Damned Day into the Church calendar.

But that still isn’t our celebration of Halloween. Our traditions on this holiday centers around dressing up in fanciful costumes, which isn’t Irish at all. 

Rather, this custom arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. Late medieval Europe was hit by repeated outbreaks of the bubonic plague — the Black Death — and she lost about half her population. It is not surprising that Catholics became more concerned about the afterlife. More Masses were said on All Souls’ Day, and artistic representations were devised to remind everyone of their own mortality.

We know these representations as the "Dance Macabre" or "Dance of Death," which was commonly painted on the walls of cemeteries and shows the devil leading a daisy chain of people — popes, kings, ladies, knights, monks, peasants, lepers, etc. — into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was presented on All Souls’ Day itself as a living tableau with people dressed up in the garb of various states of life. But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween; and the Irish, who had Halloween, did not dress up. How the two became mingled probably happened first in the British colonies of North America during the 1700s when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. The Irish focus on hell gave the French masquerades and even more macabre twist.

But, as every young ghoul knows, dressing up isn’t the point; the point is getting as many goodies as possible. Where on earth did "trick or treat" come in?

"Trick or Treat" is perhaps the oddest and most American addition to Halloween, and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.

During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England, Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds of priests were martyred.

Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a Catholic uprising against their oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot was foiled on Nov. 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot fizzled.

Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes’ Day, became a great celebration in England, and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes for their celebration: trick or treat!  Guy Fawkes’ Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. But, buy the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun to give up, so eventually it moved to Oct. 31, the day of the Irish-French masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.

The mixture of various immigrant traditions we know as Halloween had become a fixture in the Unites States by the early 1800s. To this day, it remains unknown in Europe, even in the countries from which some of the customs originated.

But what about witches? 

Well, they are one of the last additions. The greeting card industry added them in the late 1800s. Halloween was already "ghoulish," so why not give witches a place on greeting cards?

 The Halloween card failed, although it has seen a recent resurgence in popularity, but the witches stayed. So, too, in the late 1800s, ill-informed folklorists introduced the jack-o’-lantern. They thought that Halloween was druidic and pagan in origin. Lamps made from turnips (not pumpkins) had been part of ancient Celtic harvest festivals, so they were translated to the American Halloween celebration.

The next time someone claims that Halloween is a cruel trick to lure your children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of All Hallows Even and invite them to discover its Christian significance, along with the two greater and more important Catholic festivals that follow it.

archive

Sky Lantern (Flying Lantern / Wish Lantern)

What is a Sky Lantern?
Sky Lanterns, also known as Wish Lanterns and Konming Lanterns, can be thought of as a miniature hot-air balloons that can launched in your back yard for a special event or occassion.

The lantern itself is made of lightweight bio degradable paper on a bamboo frame with a small wax fuel cell suspended in the middle. Just light the wax fuel cell and the lantern fills with hot air, causing it to rise gently into the night sky.

Sky lanterns produce a stunning glow when launched into the night sky, and can travel a great distance before gently making its descent after the fuel cell has burned out. Our colored sky lanterns can be particularly great for use during daylight hours, when their bright color will be visible as they soar off into the distance.

Day or night - Sky lanterns from Sky Lanterns are perfect for weddings, birthday parties, celebrations, memorials, funerals, and remembrance services.

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICE:  Sky lanterns should never be flown when there is any noticeable wind present. Wait for a calm day. Wind may blow the sides of the sky lantern in, forcing the hot air out and causing the sky lantern to fall back to earth, possibly causing a fire. 

History and Facts about Chinese Flying Lanterns (Kongming Lantern)

 

from:  Birthstones

 

Sky lanterns, or also known as flying lanterns or Kongming lanterns are airborne paper lanterns that are constructed from oiled rice paper on a bamboo frame. During the Han Dynasty, the Chinese Empire was divided into 3 warring kingdoms (206 BC – 220 AD) and Zhu Geliang (also known as Kongming), a military hero and strategist, devised special flying lanterns to alert nearby cities of approaching attackers. Troops like to use these type of lanterns as signals to other soldiers to message each other briefly.


Inside these lanterns, a strip of kerosene-soaked cloth or paper was placed and was ignited so that the heat could lower the air density inside, making the lantern to rise into the air. The sky lantern is airborne for about 10 to 20 minutes or until the fuel cell is exhausted, after which it will then float back to the ground.


Sky lanterns are also referred to as fire balloons or sky candles. The use of sky lanterns is becoming increasingly popular. Sky lanterns can often be seen in abundance during Lantern Festival, the last day of Chinese New Year. These lanterns are released with wishes to bring lucks and prosperity in the coming year. The lanterns are also used in wedding ceremonies, anniversaries, birthday parties and even grand opening events for businesses. Sky lanterns do not come only in white color, there are also red, orange, yellow, pink and blue color paper lanterns on the market today. The flame is said to symbolize wisdom and knowledge. Many people believe that wishes written on these sky lanterns would rise up to the heaven and come true.

Indonesian Sets Sky Lantern World Record 

AsianCorrespondent on Dec 7, 2009

The world record for the most sky lanterns ever flown simultaneously, was broken in Indonesia at the weekend, with more than ten-thousand paper lanterns sent up into the night sky.  Thousands of people flooded to Carnival beach in Ancol, north Jakarta, to participate in the record breaking attempt. The participants included people of all ages, hailing from different communities, ethnic groups and even countries.

In order to prepare them, participants first filled the lanterns with air to create their tubular shape by gently swaying them from side to side. A candle inside each one was then lit and the lanterns were held for several minutes minutes whilst they inflated with hot air.

Guinness World Records representatives were present to verify the record breaking attempt . The event provided a fantastic sight for miles around as thousands of flickering lanterns drifted skywards. Freedom Faithnet Global said it organized the lantern release as a symbol of hope and prayer as part of annual celebrations. 

This year's celebrations have an environmental focus.