Eating Yuanxiao on Lantern Festival became popular in Song Dynasty. Yuanxiao is eaten in most places in China, which is called Yuanxiao in the north and Tangyuan in the south. The dumplings in the south are a bit like those in jiaozi. Roll the glutinous rice skin first, and then wrap the stuffing roll. The filling is sweet and salty. Yuanxiao in the north is basically sweet with red silk, red bean paste, black sesame seeds and peanuts, and the production method also embodies the word "shake".
In the past, some state-owned hotels in Qingdao made a large number of Yuanxiao for sale around the 15th day of the first month. Usually, the stuffing is soaked in water and then shaken in a large sieve filled with glutinous rice flour. When the stuffing is covered with glutinous rice flour, it is dipped in water and shaken, and repeated several times to become a delicate Yuanxiao. Many ordinary people in Qingdao will make their own Lantern Festival, usually filled with green and red silk. This kind of stuffing is similar to the five-kernel stuffing in Mid-Autumn Festival and is very popular with the elderly. However, in recent years, more people like the Yellow Rice Lantern Festival in Huang Chengcheng, which is almost equal to the traditional white glutinous rice Lantern Festival. Nowadays, supermarkets and cake shops sell all kinds of Yuanxiao all the year round, so the significance of "eating" on the Lantern Festival is getting weaker and weaker.
10 years ago, the Radish Club, Yuanxiao Mountain Club and Haiyun 'an Sugar Ball Club in Qingdao "merged into one" for the first time around the Lantern Festival, which became the explosion activities of Qingdao Festival and China Folk Festival. Literally, eating radish, Yuanxiao and sugar balls (candied haws) are the themes, and people attending this festival are "walking", which is similar to visiting temple fairs in their early years. Despite the introduction of many elements of the times, the long-lost homesickness and folk customs reveal the warmth and goodwill of "being slow in the past" in the joy of the times.
Nowadays, the flower viewing lanterns in Qingdao have become the main entertainment activities of the Lantern Festival. Another name for family travel is "stepping on lanterns", which is nothing more than "in the shadow of silver candles, everyone meets a lantern." Said. There are still some villages in Qingdao that still retain the folk custom of making up parades or singing Liu Qiang, Qiang Mao and Lu operas. It is full of joy, no less than the early parade, and even joined the "international element" of the current Disneyland parade.