元宵节，五颜六色的大灯笼。下面向大家推荐元宵节晚会英语作文，希望大家喜欢。
The Lantern Festival (元宵节) is the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration. This day is for the last moment for setting off fireworks, the last excuse for eating a big feast and the last chance for family getting together before the “年” celebrations are over. (Latern Festival is also a traditional time of celebration for foreigners who live in China).
The Lantern Festival, the 15th of the first month of the lunar calendar, is the first full moon of the year. Celebrations and traditions on this day date back to the Western Han Dynasty.
Traditions for this festival: as the name indicates, hanging and looking at lanterns is the main tradition. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are displayed on trees, or along river banks.
Parents often take their children to Lantern Fairs and sometimes lucky kids even get a mini toy lantern.
Another tradition is guessing lantern riddles. These are riddles that are hung on lanterns for people to shoot down and solve. The riddles are usually short, wise, and sometimes humorous. The answer to a riddle can be a Chinese character, a famous person's name, a place name or a proverb. This tradition has become a popular game with serious staying power even as social development changes other traditions.
Other than that, the most important thing to do today is to eat sweet dumplings. In northern China, sweet dumplings made of glutinous rice flour are called “元宵” while in southern part they are called “汤圆”. Typical sweet dumplings are filled with black sesame sauce, sweetened bean paste, or hawthorn. Making “元宵” today is like a game or an activity, so it's seldom done without a reason and a group of friends or family present to help out.
the chinese new year is now popularly known as the spring festival because it starts from the begining of spring (the first of the twenty-four terms in coodination with the changes of nature). its origin is too old to be traced. several explanations are hanging around. all agree, however, that the word nian, which in modern chinese solely means year, was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of a new year.
one legend goes that the beast nian had a very big mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. people were very scared. one day, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue nian. to nian he said, i hear say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents? so, it did swallow many of the beasts of prey on earth that also harrassed people and their domestic animals from time to time.
probably more food is consumed during the new year celebrations than any other time of the year. vast amounts of traditional food is prepared for family and friends, as well as those close to us who have died.
on new year's day, the chinese family will eat a vegetarian dish called jai. although the various ingredients in jai are root vegetables or fibrous vegetables, many people attribute various superstitious aspects to them.
other foods include a whole fish, to represent togetherness and abundance, and a chicken for prosperity. the chicken must be presented with a head, tail and feet to symbolize completeness. noodles should be uncut, as they represent long life.
in south china, the favorite and most typical dishes were nian gao, sweet steamed glutinous rice(糯米)pudding and zong zi (glutinous rice wrapped up in reed(芦苇)leaves), another popular delicacy.
in the north, steamed-wheat bread (man tou) and small meat dumplings were the preferred food. the tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance and wealth for the household.
The Lantern Festival, which occurs on the 15-th day of the First Month of the Chinese Year, marks the end of the New Year's Holidays.
Lanterns are everywhere. A most interesting tradition is the posting of riddles called 'Lantern Riddles.' Riddles are written on pieces of paper and posted on lanterns or wall. Any one solving the riddle is awarded a prize. And the food for lantern festival is Tang Yuan, i have made some Tang Yuan in a ginger soup, my wife got a serious cold, so i cooked a pot of ginger soup for her. I look forward to the next spring festival.
The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance. This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.
Till today, the lantern festival is still held each year around the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the streets, extremely excited. "Guessing lantern riddles"is an essential part of the Festival. Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the riddles, they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owners to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little gift. The activity emerged during people's enjoyment of lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all social strata.
People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the "Yuanxiao Festival."Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan. It is small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What’s more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with "tuanyuan”, meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.