The 15th of the first month of annual Lunar New Year, when Chinese New Year has just passed, is the Chinese traditional festival - the Lantern Festival.
The first month is January of the lunar calendar, the ancients called Night of Xiao, so called fifteenth day of the first month of lunar calendar as Lantern Festival. The 15th of the first month of the year is the day when the first full moon come out.
According to Chinese folk tradition, in the night, people would lights more than 10,000 lanterns for celebrating. And people would also go out to watch the full moon, enlighten and put flame, guess riddles, eating the rice glue ball together with the family reunion and celebrate the festival, and enjoy themselves.
Among the people, eating the rice glue ball has been a custom with long history. At first, people called this kind of food ''Floating Mariko'', later known as the dumpling or Tangyuan, pronunciation of these names in Chinese is similar to the word ''Reunion'', so people take reunion and symbolizes the harmony , happiness and reunion of the whole family. People also memory the relatives that had passed away, and aspire the better life in future by using this way.
As time goes by, the activities of the Lantern Festival are becoming more and more. A few local places also add some traditional performances, such as playing the dragon, lion dancing, stilt-walking, playing drums and so on. This traditional festival, which lasted for more than 2,000 years, is not only prevalent in both sides of the Straits, but also celebrated in the settlement where overseas Chinese lived.