Chinese Sketches by Herbert A. Giles — Read

A great Chinese festival is the Feast of Lanterns, one which is only / second in importance to New Year's Day. Its name is not unfamiliar / even to persons in England who have never visited China, and whose / ideas about the country are limited to a confused jumble of pigtails, / birds'-nest soup, and the _kotow_. Its advent may or may not be / noticed by residents in China; though if they know the date on which / it falls, we imagine that is about as much as is generally known by / foreigners of the Feast of Lanterns.

This festival dates from the time of the Han dynasty, or, in round / numbers, about two thousand years ago. Originally it was a ceremonial / worship in the temple of the First Cause, and lasted from the 13th to / the 16th of the first moon, bringing to a close on the latter date all / the rejoicings, feastings, and visitings consequent upon the New Year. / In those early days it had no claim to its present title, for lanterns / were not used; pious supplicants performed their various acts of / prayer and sacrifice by the light of the full round moon alone. It was / not till some eight hundred years later that art came to the / assistance of nature, and the custom was introduced of illuminating / the streets with many a festoon of those gaudy paper lanterns, without / which now no nocturnal fete is thought complete. Another three hundred / years passed away without change, and then two more days were added to / the duration of the carnival, making it six days in all. For this it / was necessary to obtain the Imperial sanction, and such was ultimately / granted to a man named Ch'ien, in consideration of an equivalent / which, as history hints, might be very readily expressed in taels. The / whole thing now lasts from the 13th of the moon, the day on which it / is customary to light up for the first time, to the 18th inclusive, / when all the fun and jollity is over and the serious business of life / begins anew. The 15th is the great time, work of every kind being as / entirely suspended as it is with us on Christmas Day. At night the / candles are lighted in the lanterns, and crackers are fired in every / direction. The streets are thronged with gaping crowds, and cut-purses / make small fortunes with little or no trouble. There being no / policemen in a Chinese mob, and as the cry of "stop thief" would meet / with no response from the bystanders, a thief has simply to look out / for some simple victim, snatch perhaps his pipe from his hand, or his / pouch from his girdle, and elbow his way off as fast as he can go.