Communities in China and around the world are spending the weekend celebrating the Lantern Festival, which falls on Saturday, Feb. 24 and signals the end of the 2024 Lunar New Year festivities, which welcomed the Year of the Dragon.
The lantern festival falls on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese calendar and marks the first full moon of the new lunar year. People traditionally celebrate the holiday by decorating with colorful lanterns, often with riddles written on them and prizes for those who solve the puzzles.
Here’s how people around the globe are enjoying the holiday.
How China is celebrating the Lantern Festival
Throngs welcomed the Lantern Festival in cities across the world’s second most populous country with 1.4 billion people. Beijing hosted a slew of lantern festival events across the city. Families flocked to see impressive lantern displays and illuminated inflated animals. In Rizhao, bakers bustled to make the holiday’s special sweet rice balls, shaped and colored like persimmons.
Celebrations everywhere featured lion and dragon dances. One city, Qiandongnan, even combined a dragon dance with fireworks—the performers dressed in fire suits and helmets.
Many cities featured a regional twist on the celebrations, with displays of unique folk art and clothing. In Anyang, face-painted creatives performed on stilts in a parade. Another city, Qingdao, threw a carnival featuring traditional dances, drum performances, and folk art.
Fireworks burst across skylines nationwide. In Chongqing, tourists watched a remote-controlled performance of a giant illuminated bird fly through the sky.
