The 15th day of the Lunar New Year marks the first full moon after the Spring Festival. It is the first full moon day of the New Year, also known as 元宵節 yuán xiāo jié meaning "first night of the full moon". The day is also known as Lantern Festival day in China and Taiwan but simply the 15th night in South East Asia - Chap Ngo Meh 十五暝 .
Traditionally in Taiwan, families celebrate by having another reunion dinner with oranges and lanterns taking prominence in the celebration. Brightly lighted lanterns adorn the front and balconies of homes.
In Penang Malaysia, there is the tradition for young maidens to go to temple to throw oranges and making wish for good life partners with the bright full moon as the witness in a temple setting. This fifteenth night 十五暝 Chap Ngo Meh is the equivalent of Valentine for Chinese.
It is the custom on this night to partake in sweet dumplings called yuanxiao resembling the shape of the full moon. These round balls are made of glutinous rice flour stuffed with sugar fillings, symbolize roundness and wholeness - reunion. As symbolized by the wholeness, young maidens too are likely to fulfill their romantic wish for life partners if they seek divine blessings on this night.
Yuanxiao is also called tāngyuán (Traditional Chinese: 湯圓, Simplified Chinese: 汤圆 ) or tāngtuán (Traditional Chinese: 湯團, Simplified Chinese: 汤团).
During this festival other than at front and balconies of homes, lanterns are displayed at temples or even at lantern fairs. Children carry lanterns to temples.
There is actually a historical Taoist basis for the festival which may be lost or not known to many modern day ethnic Chinese. It has to do with Tian Guan* (ruler of heaven) - the god responsible for good fortune. His birthday falls on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. It is said that Tian Guan likes noise and entertainment and thus people have fairs and gatherings to jazz up the celebratory festive mood to welcome him. The Lantern Festival is the birthday of the heavenly officer who bestows luck to humans.
Yuan-Xiao Festival is a traditional Chinese festival going back to the Han Dynasty of over 2000 years ago. There is also a mythical story about the Lantern Festival. A beautiful heavenly bird flew down a village and was killed. For fear that heaven would be angered and might burn down the village on the 15th lunar day, one elder advised every family to hang candle lanterns around the house, carry lantern on the street, let off firecrackers at the 15th lunar night. This is to create the impression of the village on fire and the soldiers from heaven would then leave the village alone. The village survived and people keep the lantern activity on this day every year.
China is a vast country and it is natural to have more than one version of the origin of the lantern festival. Thus we have a few accounts of the lantern festival.
Chinese culture is such as to emphasize that there is time to enjoy and rest and there is time to return. People enjoy and rest during the fifteen days of Lunar New Year.
There is time to work and there is time to rest. This is the reality of life - the dual truth of life. Some refer to this as the yin and the yang.
After the fifteenth day of Lunar New Year, all life must return to normalcy. Thereafter most people will work when sun rises and rest when sun sets. This is the ritual of life though there are variations to this ritual. People religiously follow this ritual. This is the daily culture of humanity. Culture is religion and religion is culture. The good lord Lord Bo Tien (武天菩萨) touched on this in one of his messages, didn't he?
But the erosion of culture partly due to tide of global encroachment of Western culture and values has diluted ancestral culture of many communities in the world especially Asian countries.
Thus for many say in South East Asia, the 15th night is hardly an event and instead of 15th night being a night for young ladies to seek divine blessings for life partners, many celebrate Feb 14 the Valentine Day instead.
Is this desirable? Well people in society will have to decide what they want. They must know themselves and their roots and not face risk of being rootless and end up as roamers or nomads in life.
Didn't God and saints teach us that to know the world and to know life, we must know ourselves - our culture and our roots? What matters is what is in us, in our culture, in our hearts and not what others do and the need to ape and follow the global crowd. Isn't this reminiscent of what Ji Gong (济公) holds dearly as his guiding principle in life?
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| Ji Gong (济公) :
"What matters is what is in us,
what goes through the heart
and not what we do or
what goes through the gut." |
Lord Bo Tien (武天菩萨) touches on the yin and the yang balance in life and that there must this balance in us to begin with. If we cannot balance the yin and yang in us, how can we be atop the yin and yang in the world.
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| Lord Bo Tien (武天菩萨) |
Proper grasp of our cultural background will put us in the correct footing to achieve yin yang balance and be atop yin and yang. Know ourselves and our roots if we want to know the world and be on top of life - not be swept around by the tide of change in this world.
It is easier to be swept downstream but if we want clear water, we must not follow the tide but go upstream against the tide. This too did Lord Bo Tien (武天菩萨) teaches us.
*http://jindeyuan.org/en/tag/shang-yuan-tian-http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/tian-guan.html-da-di
Below are extracts from wikipedia
Tian Guan, the Ruler of Heaven and one of the three rulers, the San-guan. He bestows wealth and good luck. All three rulers keep a register of the good and evil deed of people. Tian-guan is usually shown standing and holding a scroll with the inscription "The Ruler of Heaven bestows good fortune", and for that reason he is venerated as a god of good fortune.
"Three rulers", the name for three Taoist deities, namely Tian-guan, Di-guan, and Shui-guan. They play an important part in the religious life on the Chinese. All three rulers keep a register of the good and evil deed of people.
Their veneration dates goes back to the beginning of religious Taoism. Their help was enlisted during healing ceremonies by both Zhang Jue and Zhan Dao-ling, the respective leaders of the Way of Supreme Peace and Five-Pecks-of-Rice Taoism. During these healing sessions, people would write their sins -- believed to be the cause of their illness -- on three pieces of paper, one for each ruler. The paper intended for Tian-guan was either burned or deposited on the peak of a mountain; the paper addressed to Di-guan was buried in the ground; and the one for Shui-guan was thrown in the water.
The cult of San-guan was reformed under Kou Qian-zhi and they became functionaries of the gods, supervising rites and rewarding believers. Each city had a hall or temple dedicated to them. They are not often portrayed together, but when they are they sit next to each other and are dressed as mandarins.
