LANTERN FESTIVAL IN NORTH EAST CHINA
By: Valeria P
The Lantern Festival is celebrated in a lot of places in North East China such as Taipei and Taiwan. They often put display lights that leave people in awe. Master craftsman construct multicolor paper animals in shapes such as butterflies, dragons, birds, dragonflies and many other animals. The Lantern Festival started long ago. The legend says that the Jade Emperor was angry because the town had killed his favorite goose. The emperor decided to destroy the town with a storm of fire. A good fairy heard what the emperor was planning and warned all the people of the town to light lanterns at a certain time. The Jade emperor was in Heaven and he saw all the lights. With all the lights on, it looked like the town was already on fire, so he thought that it was already taken care of. The Lantern Festival marks the end of the New Year Chinese festivities.
Traditional Customs:
During the Lantern Festival there are Yangko dances.
The Yangko dance is a dance that people in the North of China do often during times of celebration. Yangko dancers usually wear very colorful costumes. As soon as people hear the gongs and the drums they run out of their houses to see the Yangko dancers perform. These dances are mostly performed in winter. The next morning after dancing all night on the snow, the ground becomes very hard. No matter how cold it is outside, the Yangko dance is still there.
http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/festival/lantern/lantern.html
http://www.topren.net/travel/culture/yangko/yangko.html
Traditional Food:
The language in North East China is mostly Mandarin, Korean and Mongolian. North East China is located in Eastern Asia bordering the East China Sea. This information was taken from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/geos/ch.html
There are many e nvironmental issues in North East China. There is a lot of air and water pollution. There is also a lot of deforestation and every day there are more and more endangered species.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html#Geo
Beijing is the capital of the Republic of China. The place in the photograph is the international place for trade and communication.
http://www.paesionline.com/asia/china/beijing/introduction.asp
There are also very nice places to visit for example the Great Wall of China. It stretches from Shanghai to Jiayu that is a lot of distance. The Great Wall of China is 3,948 miles long.