Let’s guess riddles in the Lantern Festival, one of the most celebrated traditional Chinese. Qingdao was immersed in the hustle and bustle in the just-concluded Lantern Festival of the year of the rabbit.

In the Lantern Festival which fell on February 5, citizens and tourists flocked to the Laoshan Mountain Scenic Spot to celebrate the new year amid dragon and lion dance performances. Tourists glutted themselves with the Laoshan Mountain dumplings made with Jufeng green tea by tea master. Tourists embraced by accident traditional Chinese culture, including Tai , Laoshan Xuanzhen internal boxing performance, dough figurine and sugar painting; The Shinan district “Travel around Jieli” festival was still a real hit, the hot wine party, the Aier fair and the moon fair unremittingly created festive atmosphere; When night fell, the Golden Beach Beer City in the West Coast New Area was packed with people. Hundreds of UAVs flew into the sky, presented different shapes like jade rabbit and Kongming lantern and wrote “Happy Lantern Festival” in the air.

In the Lantern Festival, the Jimo ancient city was crowded with people and bathed in strong festive atmosphere where people strolled around the fairground, admired lanterns, watched traditional operas, tasted delicious food and enjoyed antique-style parade; Amid loud gongs and drums and melodious suona horns, the over 300 years-old Jiaozhou new year yangko fair, participated by 3,000 dancers this year, has awakened the memory of strong festive atmosphere; On Zhengyang Middle Road in Chengyang district, over one hundred folk custom activities, including land boat, yangko, dragon dance and lion dance, wonderful intangible cultural heritage performances like plate and drum dance, paper cutting, fish skin drum and stilts; in the Pingdu’s Lantern Festival-themed fair, citizens burned incense, tasted tea, hung paintings and played Qin to experience the culture of Song Dynasty.

To celebrate the Lantern Festival, lantern making in the Qingdao Municipal Museum, handicraft making, martial arts and acrobatics performance in the Qingdao Folk Museum have attracted a slew of enthusiasts. The traditional Guqin show on the water in the Textile Valley glutted the eyes of visitors. The Cross City Qingdao Tour kicked off in the Qingdao Underwater World, and the sea routes in the Olympic Sailing Marine Culture Tourism Zone enabled citizens to feel the unique charm of “touring Qingdao on the sea”.    (Wang Kai)

1、Amid splendid lantern shows and lion dance performance, citizens and tourists are enchanted with the traditional Chinese festival.  By Wang Lei

2. In the Lantern Festival, the old town of Qingdao is packed with people. By Wang Lei