The 15th day of the first month is the Lantern Festival. Customs of the Lantern Festival include: eating soup dumplings, guessing lantern riddles, playing dragon lanterns, walking on stilts, and lion dance.

1, eat dumplings

Eating "dumplings" is an important custom of the Lantern Festival. Soup dumplings, also known as "dumplings", "Lantern". The custom of eating dumplings began in the Song Dynasty, when the dumplings were called "floating rounds", also known as "soup dumplings", "lactose rounds", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls", "soup balls".

2, guess the lantern riddles

Playing with lanterns is an important program of the Lantern Festival. Lantern riddle is a kind of word game derived from Lantern Festival, also called Lantern Tiger. The riddles are pasted on the lanterns for people to guess and shoot, the riddles focus on the meaning of the words, and there are 24 kinds of riddles, commonly used in the curtains, swings, phoenix and other riddles, which has formed a unique folk culture.

3, playing dragon lantern

Juggling dragon lanterns, also known as dragon lanterns or dragon dance. See in the written records of the dragon dance, is the Han Dynasty, Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu", the author of the hundred plays in the narrative of the dragon dance made a vivid depiction. And according to the "Sui Book - Music Zhi" records, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, similar to the hundred plays in the dragon dance performance of the "yellow dragon change" is also very wonderful, dragon dance popular in many parts of China. China reveres the dragon as a symbol of good luck.

4, stilt walking

Stilt walking is a popular folk performance of mass skill. Stilts are a kind of ancient Chinese opera, which appeared as early as the Spring and Autumn Period. The earliest introduction of stilts in China is "Lie Zi - said Fu": "Song has Lanzi, with the skills of dry Song Yuan. Song Yuan summoned him to see his skill. To double the length of the branch times its body, belonging to its shins, and tends and chi, get seven swords iterative and leaping, five swords are often in the air, Yuanjun was surprised, and immediately gave gold and silk."

5, lion dance

Lion dance is our country's excellent folk art, every Lantern Festival or gatherings and celebrations, the folk are to lion dance to cheer. This custom originated in the Three Kingdoms period, began to popularize the North and South Dynasties, has been more than a thousand years of history. According to legend, it was first imported from the Western region, the lion is Manjushri Bodhisattva's mount, with the introduction of Buddhism into China, and from then on the lion dance activities have also been imported into China.

The lion was a tribute brought back by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty along with the peacock after he sent Zhang Qian on a mission to the West. The technique of the lion dance is derived from the "masked theater" of the Western Liang, and it is also believed that the lion dance was created in the army in the fifth century and later introduced into the folklore. Both claims have their own basis, today it is difficult to judge its right and wrong.