Lantern Festival: carnival for Tibetans

09:14, March 02, 2010

The Tibetan people on the snowy plateau spent the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar, in spree and peace.

This year's lantern festival also marked the 15th day of the first month in the Tibetan calendar, which is considered an auspicious day by Tibetans.

On the morning of February 28, Lhasa, capital of Tibet, was shrouded by the rising smoke of bSang -- a kind of incense. The circumambulation path around the old district of Lhasa was crowded with Buddhism believers, with some turning prayer wheels and others adding bSang into the censer to pray for good luck in the new year.

Buddhists to worship the statue of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, queued up in front of the gate to the Jokhang Monastery -- the most important of its kind in Lhasa.

Wangmu, wife of the interpreter of the Tibet Mountaineering Team Purbu Tsering, was preparing for lunch while waiting for her relatives who went to worship Buddhas.

Wangmu said, "The 15th day of the first month in the Tibetan calendar marks the end of the Tibetan New Year holiday. So we will be able to enjoy the spree of the last day."

Although eating yuanxiao (stuffed dumplings) is a tradition of Han people to mark the Lantern Festival, more and more Tibetan families have also introduced the food onto their dinner tables with the increasingly closer exchanges between Han and Tibetan cultures.

The Han people living in Tibet either got together or went to the Tibetan families to make sweet dumplings. And in Lhasa's major supermarkets, various kinds of yuanxiao have been the best-selling food.

The Tibetan New Year starts from the first day and runs till the 15th of the first month in the Tibetan calendar. After the Tibetan New Year ends, people begin to be busy with their work again.

In rural areas, the Tibetans will hold a spring ploughing ceremony in March to start their farming work.

Source: Xinhuanet