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Lantern Festival Highlights
Nanning, China: Visitors take photos of a 100-meter ‘lantern wall’ at a park in Nanning, China.The Lantern Festival: An aerial view of a lantern show in the ancient city of Xi’An.The wildest Lantern Festival celebration: Perhaps the wildest event of them all happens in Taiwan. The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, an annual tradition held on the final day of the Lunar New Year in Tainan City, has been happening for over 130 years. Participants wear motorcycle helmets, fire-retardant clothing, and thick gloves as hundreds of thousands of firecrackers go off behind them.Rice balls: In preparation for the Lantern Festival, workers make tangyuan at a factory in Yueyang in central China’s Hunan province. These rice balls are a popular Lantern Festival snack.Tasty tiles: The round motifs of tangyuan symbolize the reunion and wholeness of families. However, as these mah jong-shaped treats demonstrate, the rice balls aren’t always round.A wall of lava: A blacksmith throws molten metal to create a shower of sparks on the eve of the Lantern Festival at a park in Beijing in 2022.Chengdu, China: The centuries-old custom, dashuhua (translated as ‘hit tree flower’), is considered a custom of the town of Nuanquan. More importantly, today it takes place in cities all over China.Light it up: Craftsmen prepare for a molten iron fireworks show to celebrate the Lantern Festival at the Jingzhou Garden Expo Park on February 26, 2021, in the Chinese city of Jiangzhou.Bangkok, Thailand: A worker prepares red lanterns at a shop in Bangkok’s Chinatown during Lunar New Year.Sydney, Australia: Cities all over the world, including Sydney, host Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival events.
