In China, Spring Festival begins with Lunar New Year, when everybody frightens the monster Nianshou away, and lasts for the next two weeks. During that time, red lanterns are hung, riddles are written, and soup with balls of sticky rice is made, culminating on Lantern Festival, the final day of the festival, where dragons dance in the streets and paper lanterns are sent up into the sky, carrying wishes to heaven like little hot air balloons. This week, we’ll look at one of the many stories on how Lantern Festival came to be.

 

Written, narrated, and produced by Jaer Christie

Research by Jaer Christie & Elena Tung

Music by Shaoqing Luna Li - all via https://filmmusic.io/u/sqluna/music

Dancing Abroad

A Lost Map of Heaven

The Night

License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license