lantern festival

the lantern festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar calendar, the day when the new year's first full moon comes into view. the legend i know best says that a group of villagers angered the jade emperor so much that he threatened to burn their village. a clever villager (probably named "vicky") devised a plan to trick the jade emperor into thinking that the village had already been burned: he told everyone to hang lanterns, make bonfires, and light firecrackers all over town. the jade emperor was successfully misled, and people have carried on the fiery tradition ever since. edward chung told me such exciting stories about this day that i invited my mom over to the ilha formosa. she came (yeah!), and yesterday our lantern festival fantasies were fulfilled and exceeded.

we started our day at southern taiwan's foguangshan monastery. alongside co-teacher sarah and her munchkins, eva and dada, we admired sun-lit lantern decorations and bowed our heads before thousands and thousands of buddhas of all shapes and sizes. we saw two parades: one of monks and regular people chanting sutras and prostrating themselves in a slow march towards the main temple, and another of children wearing makeup, passing out candy, and dancing their hearts out despite the sweaty midafternoon heat.


after a few hours of devotion, it was time to fool the jade emperor and blow some things up. we said goodbye to sarah and joined mr. edward chung and his mother, mrs. chung, in pingtung city. the atmosphere there was somewhat different. the most notable difference: the thousands of buddhas had been replaced by hundreds of thick bamboo poles neatly wrapped in thousands of firecrackers. also, chanting and bowing had been replaced by yelling into microphones and dumping water on everything in sight.














men in white had a range of duties. from left to right:
lighter: burned giant joss sticks used to light bamboo poles
douser: dumped water on anything that might later catch fire
holder: stood in a circle holding bamboo poles as they exploded
once everybody was good and doused, the party started:















the explosions went on for at least 10 minutes. being a spectator was much more complicated than i expected: you had to find the right balance between plugging your ears, covering your mouth from choking smoke, taking pictures, jumping up and down in excitement, looking down to see if you were on fire from flying debris, rubbing your eyes, coughing, doing interviews for hakka TV, and making sure that your mother wasn't on fire. we survived, mom loved it, and nobody got hurt (in pingtung city, anyways). happy lantern festival everyone, and welcome to taiwan, mom!
photos: taiwan's tallest buddha; procession through foguangshan's main gate; dada contemplates 2 big buddhas; eva surrounded by 14,000 tiny buddhas; bamboo poles; lantern festival fellas; the scene in front of matsu temple; mom & eileen; the aftermath