The Teochew proverb says: "Once a year, the Lantern Festival is bright." On this day, the moon is bright and clear, hanging high in the sky, and on earth, all the lights, brilliant, it can be said that heaven and earth, fear into the world of lights. Lantern Festival in the eyes of the Chaoshan people, the status is only slightly less than the Spring Festival. The people of Chaoshan have been preparing for the festival since the 13th day. For example, Hai Feng people start to "build lanterns" on the 13th day. On this day, lantern sellers on the streets hang all kinds of lanterns for people to see and buy, and many lanterns are hung in temples and ancestral halls. Children are even more excited, beating gongs and drums to "turn on the lanterns". Ordinary people prepare a lot of refreshments and invite their relatives to eat and drink, which is called "drinking tea with lanterns". Even if no one invited, but as long as you have the pleasure, just walk into a house, will be warmly received by the host. In the countryside, if there is a boy's family, since the 11th day of the lunar calendar, they will go to the ancestral hall of the clan in the township to hang lamps one after another. Rich people hang four to five layers, ordinary people one to two layers. The base of the lanterns is made of bamboo frame, and the characters on it are made of lead wire and silk paper to make the shells, and then put on real-life-like costumes according to different identities, and the faces are molded with gypsum and framed with paper; the outside is painted with powder, and then painted with the colors of Chinese paintings. The figures can be big or small, and surrounded by scenery. The name of the household is written on the red paper pasted under each lantern screen for people to view and compare. From the day the lanterns are hung on the 11th day, it is called "starting the lanterns". The "starting lamp" is actually "starting Ding", is the newborn boy into the family ceremony, implying that I wish a bright future means. This is a manifestation of the old custom of emphasizing male children over female children and the feudal backward thinking. Starting lamp family, since the date of the lamp, every night to the clan shrine to light the lamp, until the eighteenth day to close the lamp.

Light-appreciation custom, legend since the Han Dynasty. After the death of Liu Ying, Emperor Hui of Han Dynasty, Zhou Bo and Chen Ping eliminated all the lvs and made Liu Heng the emperor. The day of the pacification of all the Lu is the 15th day of the first month, every night, Liu Heng went out of the palace to play with the people, this is the beginning of the Lantern Festival. The custom of burning lanterns on the night of the Lantern Festival began in the Sui and Tang dynasties.

"Sui Book - Music Zhi" in: "Whenever the first month, all the countries come to the court,...... fifteen days outside the Duanmen, outside the Jianguo Gate, stretching eight miles ...... to dusk up to Dan." Fifth generation Wang Renyu "Kaiyuan Tianbao legacy - hundred branches of lights tree": "Mrs. Han set a hundred branches of lights tree, eighty feet high, erected in the mountains, on the New Year's Eve point of the hundred miles

all see, the light of the moon color also." This custom has been passed down from generation to generation.

The Chaoshan people in this day, whether women, children, old or young, are very excited, early worship ancestors, dinner and then go out to the streets to enjoy the lantern. In front of the lamp shed in the big ancestral hall, there are a sea of people, laughing and a joyful atmosphere. On the lantern shed, lotus lanterns, plum blossom lanterns, carp lanterns, horse lanterns, landscape painting lanterns, and various palace lanterns converge to form a golden fire dragon, under the reflection of the fire dragon: Dong Zhuo, Diao Chan, Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Qin Qiong, Chen San, Wu Niang and other characters are vividly lifelike, and are very beautifully depicted. Chaoshan's "Hundred Screen Lanterns" ballad sings:

Live lights to see the end of the gauze lamp: the first screen Dong Zhuo Feng Yi Pavilion, Diaochan ****i in the play, Lv Bu gas to the hand mallet chest; the second screen Qin Qiong inverted copper flag; the third screen Li Su shot money; the fourth screen Pearly Blossom in the drug addiction; the fifth screen Guo Wuai sell marriage fat; the sixth screen pointing generals Yang Yanzhao; the seventh screen Zhang Fei war horse supreme; the eighth screen Kong Ming empty city plan; the ninth screen Li Dan to explore the Feng Jiao; the 10th screen Guan Master over the five passes; the eleventh Zhaoren! Zhao Yun saves Ah Dou; Liu Bei takes Xichuan; Wei Wentong is a great general; Han Wengong freezes and snows; Zheng En goes down to Hedong; Shi Qian steals a chicken; Liang Yu thinks of a hairpin; Gui Zhi writes a letter; Bi Ying meets Zhang Qian; Ying Ying listens to the qin; Qin Qiong fights with Yang Lin; Li Mi has arrows in his belt; Zhu Baichen persuades the king to go to Hedong; Sanxiu Fenlihua rests on her throne; Qin Qiong goes to win the championship; XXVII Xuemei teaches a lesson to the merchants. The way of business; twenty-eight Yuan Gui beat Qin Mei; twenty-nine Jin Zhen swept the window; thirty said ancient Han Peng: thirty-one Wancheng met Zhang Xiu; thirty-two Qin Hui storm Pavilion; thirty-three Jin Hua in the palm of the sheep; thirty-four big battle Taiping Bridge; thirty-five Li Kui fights the tiger; thirty-six Chen San **** Wu Niang; thirty-seven Tang Wang tour of the Moon Palace; thirty-eight with the Ping Qingfeng Pavilion; thirty-nine Su Qin fake failed to rank; forty-eight Bao met Di Qing; forty-four Bao sleeps trapped in the Wujiang River; forty-two go thieves met Ruilan; forty-three Pang Tong The chain trick; 4.4 Taigong met Wenwang; 4.5 Mengzheng went to the colorful building; 4.6 Guangong went to resign from Cao; 4.7 Broke the Ten Thousand Immortals Formation; 4.8 Five Tigers fought with Niugao; 4.9 Sanniang took the mallet; 5.9 Yongqing went to the ring; 5.1 Wusong collected Fanglai; 5.2 Yang Ren collected Zhang Kui; 5.3 Battle with the Wild Bear Immortal; 5.4 Sun Bin met Pang Juan; 5.5 The Three Whips met the Two Mace; 5.6 Qin Qiong rescued Li Yuan; 5.7 Three strikes on Zhujiazhuang; 5.8 Cutting off hair of Yang Wulang; 5.9 Li Tong took the Liu Bei goes to recruit his wife; 776 the Duke of State fights Li Liang; 788 Huang Zhong fights Wang Fan Zhang; 790 Zi Long fights Zhang He; 80 Zhang Gong is trapped in Suiyang; 81 Xiahou Yuan fights Xiahou Yuan; 82 Qian Yulian throws himself into the river; 83 Bao Gong wants to stop his nephew; 84 Wu Zetian usurps the throne; 85 Ren Gui returns to the kiln; 86 Yang Gun teaches the spear; 87 Regulus shoots the halberd; 88 the martyr Xu Meng Jiang; 89 Wang Biao stabs Wang Zhui; 90 Wenguang goes to collect the demon; 91 Wu Sung

From this it can be seen, a hundred screen character stories, many from the legend, but also from the Teochew opera characters, when people see this screen lanterns as if flipping through a beautiful story. On the night of the Lantern Festival, Chaozhou City's street corners of some of the more open places, set up a bamboo poles as a skeleton, the following inserted with banyan tree branches and leaves, lanterns and colorful shed. Shed inside the molded a large Maitreya Buddha, fat head and brain, long ears hanging shoulders, bare belly of the upper body, seems to sit like lying down, smile can be

Smile. In the Maitreya Buddha body put some Chaozhou Fuyang produced clay colorful baby. After the owner of the shed let go of the cannon, throwing Maitreya Buddha activities began. People in the distance from the Maitreya Buddha more than ten feet away from the bamboo fence, with copper aiming at those colorful baby, vigorously thrown. If the colorful baby was hit, that is, the lottery, the shed owner will break the hit

in the colorful baby picked up with red paper wrapped gift to the winner as a souvenir. Sometimes the hitter's strength is too big and breaks the colored child, the owner will take a new one to make up for it. In some of the more difficult to hit parts, such as the top of the head, ears, nose tip, etc., is in a gift three. This colorful child is commonly known as "happy child". People think: hit

, the next year will be able to get early son early wealth. Therefore, those who just when the groom of the boy, just married his daughter-in-law's father-in-law, due to hold children and grandchildren eager, even if the cast hundreds of times also have no hesitation, once hit the owner of the shed and the onlookers that is applauded and congratulated.