About the Mid-Autumn Festival

The origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in my country. According to historical records, the term "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the book "Zhou Rites". In the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was a record of "ordering the minister to suppress the cattle confusion, and on the Mid-Autumn Festival night, the left and right people were incognito and flooded the river". It was not until the early Tang Dynasty that the Mid-Autumn Festival became a fixed festival. "Book of Tang·Taizong Ji" records the "Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th". The popularity of the Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Song Dynasty. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it had become as famous as New Year's Day and became one of the major festivals in our country. This is also the second largest traditional festival in our country after the Spring Festival.

According to our country's calendar, the eighth month of the lunar calendar is in the middle of autumn and is the second month of autumn, so it is called "Zhongqiu". The fifteenth day of August is in the middle of "Zhongqiu", so it is called "Mid-Autumn Festival". ". The Mid-Autumn Festival has many nicknames: because the festival falls on August 15th, it is called "August Festival" and "August Half"; because the main activities of the Mid-Autumn Festival are all centered around the "month", it is also commonly known as "Moon Festival" "Moon Eve"; the full moon on Mid-Autumn Festival symbolizes reunion, so it is also called "Reunion Festival". In the Tang Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was also called the "Duanzheng Month". Records about the "Reunion Festival" first appeared in the Ming Dynasty. "West Lake Tour Notes" says: "August 15th is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and people send mooncakes to each other to symbolize reunion." "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" also says: "When worshiping the moon on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the cakes will be round, the melons will be broken into pieces, and the petals will be carved like lotus flowers. ... Those who have a wife who has returned to peace will return to her husband's house on this day, which is called reunion. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, there is also the custom of baking "reunion" in most parts of China, which is to bake a small cake that symbolizes reunion and is similar to a moon cake. The cake is filled with sugar, sesame, osmanthus and vegetables, and the moon and osmanthus are pressed on the outside. After the moon festival, the elders of the family will cut the cake into pieces according to the number of people, and leave one piece for each person, which means family reunion.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, there are few clouds and fog, and the moonlight is bright and clear. In addition to a series of activities such as moon appreciation, moon worship, moon cakes, and reunion, there are also activities such as grass dragon dancing and pagoda building in some places. In addition to moon cakes, various activities are held. Planting fresh and dried fruits in season is also a delicacy on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Another theory of the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival is that the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month happens to be the time when rice matures, and every family worships the God of the Earth. The legacy of autumn newspapers.

The history of lantern riddles

Riddles are an art form of folk literature in my country; they are the wisdom and crystallization of people’s long-term labor practice and they originate from life. , used in daily life; it is also a popular intellectual activity game that attracts enthusiasts from all walks of life, allowing people to gain wonderful enjoyment while increasing their knowledge and enlightening their wisdom.

my country's lantern riddles have a long history and have a history of more than 3,000 years. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the riddles began to be divided into two categories. The riddles of things that mainly describe characteristics; the other type of riddles that focus on the meaning of words. In the Wei Dynasty, they were called "riddles". With the rise of poetry in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, poetic riddles appeared in large numbers and became the mainstream. Starting from the Song Dynasty, some literati often posted riddles on various lanterns on the night of the Lantern Festival to attract passers-by to guess. This is how "lantern riddles" became popular after the middle of the Qing Dynasty. After the Revolution of 1911, lantern riddles formed two styles: Southern and Northern. In the old society, because most of the charlatans were scholar-bureaucrats, some literati were self-righteous and one-sidedly emphasized elegance and rejected folk lantern riddles. Under the guidance of the literary and artistic policy of "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom", lantern riddle activities have developed more vigorously, and the riddles and riddles have become increasingly perfect and enriched, making great contributions to the construction of socialist spiritual civilization and activating the cultural life of the masses. At present, overseas Chinese all over the world. There are lantern riddle activities and lantern riddle academic exchanges

Eating moon cakes

Xian Qin Zaisi's "Luozhong Jiwen" said that Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty ate moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and he heard that they tasted delicious. Qujiang, the new scholar, held a wedding banquet and ordered the imperial kitchen to wrap mooncakes in red silk and give them to the new scholars. This is the earliest record we can see about mooncakes. In the Song Dynasty, mooncakes were "lotus leaf" and "golden". It has elegant names such as "flower", "hibiscus", etc., and its production method is more refined. The poet Su Dongpo once praised it in a poem, "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crisp and glutinous rice in them." The puff pastry is pastry, and the glutinous rice is sugar, and its taste is sweet and crisp. The fragrance and beauty can be imagined. After the Song Dynasty, making moon cakes not only paid attention to taste, but also designed various patterns related to the legend of the Moon Palace on the cake surface. The pattern on the cake was probably first drawn on paper and then pasted on the cake. Later, he simply used a dough mold to press it onto the mooncake. The full moon-shaped moon cake also symbolizes reunion like the full moon on the fifteenth day. People regard it as a festival food, use it to worship the moon, and use it to give gifts to relatives and friends. This is undoubtedly a reflection of the national psychology of the Han nation. Legend has it that in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the rulers of Yuan and Meng were afraid that the people would revolt, so they adopted a high-pressure policy of sending one soldier to every ten households to monitor them, and only one kitchen knife was allowed for ten households. The people couldn't bear it, so they took advantage of the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15 to give each other gifts. On the occasion of the moon cake, a wax ball is placed in the moon cake. The wax ball is wrapped in paper with an oath written on it. A piece of paper is also attached to the bottom of the cake as a hint to call on each other to fight against Mongolia and return to the country. People in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, call this kind of mooncake "Sanjin". According to the local dialect, the homophone is "Shaqiu". This is probably the reason why mooncakes are often pasted with a piece of paper today.

Lighting lanterns

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the sky is as clear as water and the moon is as bright as a mirror. It can be said to be a beautiful sight on a good day. However, people are not satisfied with this, so they light lanterns to help the moon. Colorful customs. In the Huguang area, it is a custom to stack tiles on a tower and light lanterns on it. In the Jiangnan area, there is a custom of making light boats. In modern times, the custom of lighting lanterns during the Mid-Autumn Festival has become more popular. An article written by Zhou Yunjin and He Xiangfei in "Leisurely Talking about Seasonal Events" said: "Lanterns are the most popular in Guangdong, and every family uses bamboo strips to tie lanterns ten days before the festival. They are made into the shapes of fruits, birds, animals, fish and insects. and celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, etc., painted with various colors on colored paper. Mid-Autumn night lamps with internal burning candles are tied to bamboo poles, placed on high trees on the eaves or terraces, or small lamps are built into Chinese characters or various shapes, and hung in houses. High places, commonly known as tree Mid-Autumn Festival or vertical Mid-Autumn Festival, the lanterns hung by wealthy families can be several feet high. Families gather under the lanterns to drink and have fun. Ordinary people put up a flagpole and two lanterns to enjoy themselves. The lights all over the city are like a glass world. "It seems that the custom of lighting lanterns during the Mid-Autumn Festival has been second only to the Lantern Festival since ancient times.

Poetry, painting and meaning say "Moon Riddle"

In the bright sky of Chinese traditional culture, Riddle has always been a bright star that exudes unique charm. For thousands of years, like other forms of art in Chinese culture, it has also had an indissoluble bond with the moon, and there are countless interesting and meaningful works involving the moon.

Generally speaking, these "moon riddles" can be divided into two categories: those with the moon as the face of the riddle and those with the moon as the answer. Perhaps because the bright and beautiful image of the moon is so familiar and profound in people's minds, it is not easy to create a riddle with the moon as the answer, but it is not difficult to guess. For example: "Tomorrow's total solar eclipse", type the word "moon"; "Mid-Autumn chrysanthemums in full bloom", type the idiom "The flowers are full and the moon is full"; "Toad Palace Song", type the title of the song "Yueerwan"; "Ice Wheel Surges", type the movie title "The Moon Rising from the Sea"; etc. Many of these "moon riddles" are indeed clever and impressive, but after all, due to the limitation of a single answer in production, the output is far less complex than the works with the moon as the face of the riddle. As for the latter, the creative space is obviously wider, and the hands and feet of the riddle maker are less constrained. The connotation of the riddle is greatly expanded, almost all-inclusive, and the works are more exciting and fascinating. In fact, this latter type of puzzle work should be regarded as the mainstream of "monthly puzzles".

Many of the riddles with the moon as the riddle adopt the sentence structure of poetry, and most of them quote Tang poetry and Song poetry that people are familiar with. For example, use Li Bai's "A piece of moon in Chang'an" to name the character in "Water Margin" as "Qin Ming"; use Du Fu's "The moon is the brightness in my hometown" to name an agricultural term: "illumination"; use Jia Dao's sentence "The monk knocks on the moon" "Xiamen" refers to the foreign place name "Guam"; Su Shi's poem "The moon waxes and wanes" refers to the economic term "responsible for one's own profits and losses"; etc., all fall into this category. Of course, there are also some who quote famous lines from modern poets. Mao Zedong wrote a famous poem "Huanxi Sha·He Mr. Liu Yazi" in October 1950. There is a sentence in Liu's original work: "The song is sung until the moon is full", which led to a Tang poem: "This song should only exist in the sky."

The styles of many "Moon Mysteries" are simple and popular, giving off a simple civilian atmosphere. For example: "February is flat", type the word "friend"; "The moon and the stars are dependent on each other, the sun and the moon coexist", type the word "xing"; "A pair of bright moons are not broken, they stand at the foot of the mountain. ", type the word "collapse"; "hold the moon in the water in hand", type the idiom "pearl in the palm"; and so on. These "moon mysteries" are cute and naive, giving people a sense of intimacy and closeness. There are also some "moon mysteries" that obviously reveal a graceful and elegant scroll atmosphere. For example, "Don't make the golden bottle empty to face the moon", use the "tail pattern" to play the Peking Opera play "Luminous Cup"; "The moon on Stone City is like a hook", play the "Jinling Yi" chapter of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio"; "The moon at the end of the world is full ", which refers to Marshal Ye Jianying's poem "Looking from afar"; "The bright moon shines on me and I return it", which refers to the writer of the late Ming Dynasty, "There is light"; there is also an old riddle left by the Qing Dynasty "Ci Jia saw the moon and returned it twice." ", a sentence from "Four Books" is "look at it and then leave";... Guessing this kind of "moon riddle", if you don't have "three-thirds of ink" in your belly, I'm afraid it will be like "the tengu eats the moon and has no way to eat it."

Some "moon riddles" have been passed down for years, and people are still interested in them. They are worthy of being called "old ladies" who have always been young. And more works produced in the new era undoubtedly allow people to feel the bright style of the times while guessing. For example, "the moon surges over the river", the second physics noun is: "cold light", "fluctuation"; "the twenty-five strings play the moon at night", the first modern literary and artistic form is: "music party"; "the clouds break and the moon comes to the flowers" "Make shadow", use the mining term "open-pit mining"; "I send my sorrow to the bright moon", use the scientific term "optical communication"; and so on. If the footprints of history can be traced from the illustrations of every culture and art, then aren’t the above “moon mysteries” also a piece of evidence?

What’s interesting is that for some “moon riddles”, the same riddle can reveal several answers with completely different connotations. It’s like lifting up the same red hijab to reveal the differences between several brides. Smiley face. For example, "To raise a glass to invite the bright moon", it not only uses the title of the song "Chaotian Song", but also uses the names of foreign places: "Yangon" and "Balkan"; it also uses the idiom "I am the only one"; and it also uses the philatelic noun "top grade"; Type the pinyin letter four: "YOWV"; there are five answers in total, which can be said to be "one riddle with many answers".

Another phenomenon is equally interesting - the riddles and answers of some "lunar mysteries" can actually "reverse roles" with each other and still remain correct, which is really a "wonder among the mysteries". For example: "This song should only exist in the sky", and the movie title "Crescent Moon"; "The moon crescents shine on the nine states", and the seven-character Tang poem "This song should only exist in the sky" are one example.

It is particularly worth mentioning that among the many modern "moon puzzles", many are ingenious creations by compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese. For example, in Taiwan, "the moon is full again in autumn", the food name is "longan"; "clear stream reflects the bright moon", in daily life, "beautiful"; in Hong Kong and Macao, "the waning moon shines in pairs", the word "many" is used; The Thai overseas Chinese's "When will the bright moon come" is based on a line from the Book of Songs: "The third and fifth days are in the east";... After chewing and pondering these "monthly mysteries", can you say that there is no deep affection among the overseas children who yearn for the reunification of the motherland and the reunion of their flesh and blood? !

The topic of "Moon Mystery" is like the moon like an ice mirror and a jade jade, which is graceful and moving and cannot be described endlessly. There is a saying: "A round of moonlight is as bright as day, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is the time of success." On that bright moonlit night, when relatives and friends are sitting around drinking wine and cooking tea, they might as well come up with a riddle to invite the moon to entertain them. I believe that the colorful "Moon Mystery" will definitely make the moon in your eyes more charming and lovely than usual.

Rabbits in the Moon and Folk Customs

Rabbit in the Moon Palace:

In people’s minds, rabbits are very kind and kind little animals. According to ancient legends, in addition to Chang'e and Wu Gang, the first people to land on the Moon Palace were rabbits. This is the beautiful imagination of ancient people.

Chang'e ascended to the Moon Palace. According to records in ancient books such as "Huainanzi", it was because she secretly ate the elixir that her husband Yi asked for from the Fifth Mother of the West, so she flew into the Moon Palace and became a goddess. The poisoned toad. Wu Gang ascended to the Moon Palace. According to the records of "Youyang Zazu", it was because Wu Gang from Xihe made mistakes in cultivating immortals, so he was punished to replace the laurel tree in the middle of the moon. This osmanthus tree grows as it is cut down, and it will never stop being cut down.

As for the rabbit's upper moon palace, it was first seen in Qu Yuan's "Heavenly Questions" "What is the purpose of Juili, but Gu and Cuadra are in the belly?". This means that if Gu and Tu are in the moon's belly, what good will it do to the moon? So how did the rabbit get to the moon palace? Gu is the toad, and dodder is the white rabbit. Fu Xuan's "Xian Tianwen" of the Jin Dynasty also said: "What is there in the middle of the month? White rabbits pound medicine." According to Mr. Wen Yiduo's research, this "white rabbit pounding medicine" was changed from "toad pounding medicine".

In this month, Gu and Tu changed from one thing to two things. There is also a folk legend about how they went into the moon: Three years after Wu Gang left home to learn immortality, Boling, the grandson of Emperor Yan, and his wife A woman had an affair with her wife and gave birth to three children. After Wu Gang was banished to the moon, his wife felt guilty, so she asked the two youngest children to fly to the moon to accompany their nominal father. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas - Hai Nei Jing" records: "Boling, the grandson of Emperor Yan. Boling was connected to Wu Quan's wife Anu Yuanfu. The Yuan woman was pregnant for three years, and she gave birth to Gu, Yan, and Shu." Gu and Rabbit in the middle of the month are Yan and Shu. became.

Funny "Rabbit Lord":

Because rabbits go to the moon palace, people in ancient times would use "Rabbit Lord" when celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival and offering sacrifices to the moon.

Whenever at dusk of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a bright moon hangs high in the sky, every household will set up an incense table in the courtyard, with moon cakes (also known as reunion cakes), fruits and other offerings on it. In addition, there are "Moonlight Horse" and "Rabbit Master". One by one, the women bowed to the moon. After the sacrifice, the family sits around the table, drinks reunion wine and eats reunion cakes. This is the ancient custom of worshiping the moon.

Among the offerings to the moon, what are the "Moonlight Horse" and "Rabbit Master"? This is a product of the ancient city of Beijing.

According to "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital": "On August 15th, when worshiping the moon, fruit cakes must be sacrificed; when dividing melons, they must be carved with staggered teeth, just like the moonlight paper sold by the Lotus Paper Shop, which is full of moonlight. Like the Bodhisattva sitting on a lotus flower. The moonlight is shining all over the hall. There is a rabbit holding a pestle and pounding medicine into a mortar. The small one is about three inches, and the big one is about ten feet. "The "moonlight paper" mentioned here is the paper god horse, that is, the "moonlight horse". "The Records of the Years in Yanjing" says: "The capital officials called the statues of gods as divine horses and did not dare to denounce the gods." This moonlight horse has the Lunar Star Lord on the upper part, the Moon Palace and the Rabbit making medicine on the lower part. The color painting is gilded, and it is dazzling.

As for Lord Rabbit, "The Years of Yanjing" also records: "Every Mid-Autumn Festival, the clever people in the city would use loess to make statues of toads and rabbits for sale, which were called Lord Rabbit." In the old days, Dongsi, Beijing In the archway area, there are often rabbit rabbit stalls, which specialize in selling rabbit rabbits for the Mid-Autumn Festival. In addition, Nanzhi Store also sells incense candles.

This Lord Rabbit has been personified through the bold creation of folk artists. It has the body of a rabbit and holds a jade pestle. Later, some people imitated opera characters and carved Lord Rabbit into warriors with golden helmets, some riding lions, elephants and other beasts, and some riding peacocks, cranes and other birds. In particular, the rabbit riding a tiger is a strange thing, but it is a bold creation of folk artists. There is also a kind of rabbit with movable elbow joints and chin, commonly known as "Bada Zui", which is more lovable. Although it is an offering to worship the moon, it is actually a wonderful toy for children.

Shooting wood rabbits and eating rabbit liver:

As the saying goes: "Thousands of miles have different winds, and a hundred miles have different customs." Customs vary from place to place and from nation to nation. Our country has a vast territory. There are many ethnic groups, so the same rabbits have completely different customs.

The Liao people in our country a thousand years ago were formerly the Khitan people. They originated from Donghu and were a nomadic people in the upper reaches of the Liao River. Because the Khitan people live a nomadic life, they are not surprised by small animals such as rabbits, nor do they worship them as gods. They are just hunting objects. From this point, they also developed rabbit-related entertainment and food customs. These customs are not only unique and interesting, but also have strong northern characteristics.

Different from Jiangnan who go out for an outing and hold a singing party on March 3rd, the north holds riding and shooting activities with its own characteristics. Every year on this day, the Liao people hold a game of shooting wooden rabbits, which is also a regular meeting to compete in archery. The contestant places a wooden rabbit in a selected place, and the participants are divided into two groups. If you are riding a horse and shooting, you will win if you hit the wooden rabbit. What's interesting is that the losing team must kneel down and drink wine to the winning team to express congratulations and respect; while the winner does not need to dismount, but remains on the horse, takes the wine cup, and drinks it all in one gulp. (See "Yanjing Miscellaneous Notes") Because rabbits have small and short front feet and large and long hind feet, they can run quickly and come and go erratically. Therefore, only a skilled shooter can hit it. This symbolic rabbit shooting activity may be a way of expressing people's wishes for a good hunting harvest this year.

Every year on the Double Ninth Festival, the Liao people still have the dietary custom of eating rabbit liver. On that day, the Liao ruler first led his subordinate tribes to hold a tiger shooting event, and stipulated that those who shot less would be punished with nine banquets. This was probably also an encouragement and test for mounted archery. After shooting, they chose high ground, set up a tent, and drank chrysanthemum wine for the Tibetan and Han officials. At the same time, cut the rabbit liver into slices and eat it with deer tongue sauce. Rabbit meat is tender and nutritious. Rabbit liver is even more delicious. Of course, the Liao people will never forget this delicacy.

The custom of worshiping and appreciating the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival

The 15th day of the eighth lunar month is the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival in my country, and it is also the second largest traditional festival in my country after the Spring Festival. August 15th is right in the middle of autumn, so it is called the Mid-Autumn Festival. The ancient Chinese calendar called August in the middle of autumn "Zhongqiu", so the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called "Zhongqiu Festival".

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the moon is bright and clear. The ancients regarded the full moon as a symbol of reunion. Therefore, August 15th is also called the "Reunion Festival". Throughout the ages, people have often used the words "full moon and waning moon" to describe "joys and sorrows", and wanderers living in foreign lands use the moon to express their deep feelings. Poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty wrote "Looking up at the bright moon, bowing his head thinking about his hometown", Du Fu's "The dew is white tonight, the moon is bright in my hometown", Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty wrote "The spring breeze is green again on the south bank of the river, when will the bright moon shine on me again" and other poems, They are all eternal songs.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is an ancient festival, and worshiping and admiring the moon is an important custom of the festival. Ancient emperors had a social system of worshiping the sun in spring and the moon in autumn, and people also had the custom of worshiping the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Later, appreciating the moon became more important than worshiping the moon, and serious sacrifices turned into relaxed entertainment. The custom of appreciating the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival peaked in the Tang Dynasty. Many poets included poems praising the moon in their famous works. In the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, the activities of worshiping and appreciating the moon among the court and the people became more extensive. There are many ancient monuments such as "Moon Worship Altar", "Moon Worship Pavilion" and "Moon Watching Tower" remaining in various parts of our country.

The "Altar of the Moon" in Beijing was built during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty for the royal family to worship the moon. Whenever the moon rises during the Mid-Autumn Festival, a table is set up in the open air, and moon cakes, pomegranates, dates and other fruits are offered on the table. After worshiping the moon, the whole family sits around the table, eats and talks, and enjoys the bright moon. Nowadays, the activities of worshiping and worshiping the moon have been replaced by large-scale and colorful mass moon-viewing recreational activities.

Although the date when the custom of worshiping the moon began cannot be determined, according to the existing written materials, "Qifa" written by Meicheng in the Han Dynasty said, "The guest said: I will communicate with the princes in the hope of August. And go to watch the tide on the Qujiang River in Guangling." This may be the origin of today's custom of watching the tide in Qiantang after the Mid-Autumn Festival. Around the Wei and Jin Dynasties, people began to enjoy the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival, but it did not become a custom. In the Tang Dynasty, admiring and playing with the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival was quite popular. Ouyang Zhan said in the preface of "Chang'an Wan Yue Poem": "The eighth month is in autumn, the season begins and ends in Meng, and the fifteenth is in the night, and it is in the middle of the moon. If you look at the road, the cold and heat will be even, and if you take the number of months, you will feel the toad soul. "Yuan." It was not until the Song Dynasty that it was officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival: "Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, all shops sell new wine, noble families decorate their pavilions, and private families compete in restaurants to play in the moonlight. Sheng and singing are heard from thousands of miles away, and they sit and play until dawn." ("Tokyo Menghua Lu") Moon cakes are listed as holiday delicacies. Su Dongpo once said, "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy and sweet fillings in them." The activities of the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Southern Song Dynasty were even more colorful: folk gave each other moon cakes to symbolize reunion. In the evening, people would enjoy the moon, or take a trip along the lake and sea to see the dawn. On the Su Causeway, people step and sing together, just like the daytime. Tens of thousands of "small dots of red" (lambskin lamps) were illuminated on the river, which were as bright as stars and very impressive. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of "appreciating the Mid-Autumn Festival" has become more popular. In many places, special customs such as burning incense, walking on the moon, releasing sky lanterns, planting trees for the Mid-Autumn Festival, lighting tower lanterns, dancing fire dragons, and dragging stones have also been formed. To this day, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, folk customs such as admiring the moon, eating moon cakes and reunion dinner, dragon dancing, and lighting tower lanterns are still popular.