Pingxi Lantern Festival

The Pingxi Lantern Festival is the most awe inspiring event that I have been able to attend while in Taiwan. Thousands of visitors crowd themselves onto buses, trains, taxis, whatever form of transportation is possible, (even walking, in some cases) to get from Taipei to the small mountainous town of Pingxi in North Eastern Taiwan.

Their enthusiasm is not unfounded. The festival boasts a large stage for live concert performances that are free to the public, hundreds of vendors selling the Taiwanese staples: sausage on a stick, squid on a stick, and piles of shrimp, and the main event, lanterns.

Each lantern is about four feet tall and three feet wide at the top. It tapers from a wide top to a smaller opening at the bottom, similar to a light bulb, and houses a small wire frame which supports the kerosene soaked paper money which fuels the flight. Upon the colorful skin of the lantern is written wishes for the coming year which are to float up to the heavens so that the gods may read them and hopefully grant the wish inscribed.

Each color of lantern denotes a different theme for the wish such as, green denotes peace and life, red stands for good fortune and orange is for all things related to money. People can choose from one solid color or a lantern made up of four different colors, one for each panel of the lantern.

The earliest lantern-lighters begin setting their hopes and dreams aloft in the late afternoon, well before dusk. These are not the norm however, as the festival really kicks in once the sun goes down. The effect is that once it is dark, hundreds of floating globes begin to ascend gracefully to the sky, blown like leaves on a still pond as the wind takes them along.

One area in particular, in front of the main stage where the musicians play, has a set time when people are to release their lanterns. Every half hour, anywhere from fifty to one hundred lantern lighters gather around a central space in the crowd and begin to ignite their paper money. In the center of the crowd is an enormous, 30 foot tall, white lantern which denotes the moon, as the festival is held under a full moon. This lantern too, is lit and then everything is ready. All at once the lanterns are released in a hot burst as they begin their graceful trip to the heavens. They dance through the invisible currents of the wind. The night sky becomes a black pool filled with incandescent jellyfish floating lazily among the stars. Some of them catch fire in a spectacular blaze that is over in seconds, before their charred remnants fall back down to Earth.

The trees, river, and rooftops are littered with the remnants of lanterns who's life-force can no longer support their flight. An apt reminder that not all dreams come true.

The festival is a must for anyone who is in Taiwan during the end of March. I can say that it was one of the most inspiring moments of my young life and I cannot imagine that I will ever forget the beauty of those moments, in those mountains.