When it comes to having Lantern Festival and eating glutinous rice dumplings on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, two places will naturally not be forgotten: Chenghuang Temple Ningbo Tangtuan Store and Qibao Old Street Tangtuan. The old street glutinous rice balls are cooked for a long time and won't go bad. After you take a bite, the soft glutinous rice is wrapped in the black sesame paste that spurts out, making you reluctant to stop eating.

Other time-honored brands such as Wangjiasha, Sixin Food Court, Meixin Dim Sum Shop, etc. have long queues and purchase restrictions, pushing the Lantern Festival atmosphere to the extreme. In the suburbs of Shanghai, things are a little different. For example, in Jiading, farmers eat wontons on the first half of the first lunar month, called New Year soup. They also use flour balls kneaded into pots and other shapes to steam them, which is called "steamed pots".

Shanghai Lantern Festival customs

1. Lighting rabbit lanterns in the alley

The "lantern festival" of lighting "rabbit lanterns" is an annual event for every household A large-scale event that everyone must participate in, "Cai Lantern" is a lantern in the shape of a mother and child rabbit tied with colored paper, which is lit and paraded through villages, ancestral halls, and every household. The folk custom of "passing lanterns" emerged in the Tang Dynasty. People regarded rabbits as auspicious things. Wherever the rabbit lantern went, it meant that it brought good luck and good luck.

2. Watch the dragon and lion dance performances

There are dragon lantern dances, lion performances and other performances on the streets during the Lantern Festival. The dragon lanterns are divided into golden dragon, green dragon and white dragon. The dancing dragon lantern moves and rolls while dancing, the dancers are like crazy, and the spectators are like clouds. The Lantern Festival Lantern Festival in Yu Garden is wonderful. On the eve of the Lantern Festival, there are groups of Luoqi, orchestras are boiling, and there are fiery trees and silver flowers. It is extremely bright. The Mingliao in the garden is wide open, and tourists gather. There are more lights than stars in the pavilions far and near, and the sound of firecrackers is as loud as pearls. Incessantly, in order to compete for the victory.

3. Hanging red lanterns

At night, red lanterns are hung on tall bamboo poles. Village children carry colorful lanterns, and some people play "throwing fireballs to shine on the fields." On Lantern Festival night in Jinshan and Songjiang areas, some people set wildfires in the fields and some hung lanterns in front of the eaves. Some people took to the streets to dance dragon lanterns, while others went out to "string lanterns".