Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month is an important traditional festival in China. This day was called Shangyuan in ancient times, and its night was called Yuanye, Yuanxi or Yuanxiao. In ancient China, there was a close relationship between the calendar and the moon phases. There is a full moon on 15 every month, which is called "full moon".
The full moon symbolizes a happy reunion. On the fifteenth day of the first month, people ushered in the first full moon night of the year, which is naturally regarded as an auspicious day. According to records, as early as the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the imperial court offered sacrifices to Taiyi God (the Emperor of Heaven) and prayed for blessings on the fifteenth day of the first month. According to the folk tradition in China, on this bright night, people light thousands of lanterns to celebrate.
Lantern Festival, a popular area of Lantern Festival
Lantern Festival (the custom of nine river lanterns) is mainly distributed in northern China. Among various formation structures, the "Zhong Jiu" formation is representative. The custom of Jiuqu Yellow River Lantern is widely distributed in more than ten provinces and cities such as Shanxi, Hebei, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Beijing and Liaoning.
Besides abbreviation, Yellow River and Yellow River Jiuqu also have many common names in various places, such as stringing the Yellow River, running the Yellow River, turning the Yellow River, turning Jiuqu, traveling Jiuqu, Jiuqu Festival, Lantern Festival, ground lamp, bend, floor lamp and so on.
Northern Shaanxi is often called "disturbing the old religion", Inner Mongolia is called "Jiuqu Sheng Hui" and "Jiuqu Lantern Festival", and southern Shaanxi is called "ground lamp". There are also lantern arrays (Mancheng, Hebei, Yongchang, Gansu, Shouxian, Anhui) and lantern maze (Lixin, Anhui), which also belong to the custom of Jiuqu Yellow River Lantern.