Lanterns of Mid-Autumn Festival - 22/9/2010

As we move into 21st century, the annual mid-autumn festival has been celebrated with different fanfare than those in the 70s-80s. Those are my growing up years.

I remember clearly that during those days we only have one type of lantern to carry about and that's the paper lantern. They usually comes in 2 versions. One with transluscent colorful papers stick onto bamboo structures of various shapes and sizes. The other is the circular collapsible one which can be easily erected by pulling up the wire over its top to form a simple cylinder encasing the burning candle.

As young kids, my siblings and I would often need our parents to help us light up the candles and fix them into these paper lanterns before we ventured into dark corners with these fanciful "toys". Their dim glow gave us a sense of unexplainable delight in the dark "mysterious" corners of our playground. The challenge then was how to carry the bamboo ones in such a way that its flickering flame would not be blown-off by the wind. Those who were reckless or inexperienced would quickly have their lanterns burnt into ashes, ending their fun in the dark playground.

Later as we grew older, we began to light-up our own lanterns. It was a different fun for us. Alighting the candles, sticking them into the metallic candle-base and erecting the collapsible lanterns all need different set of skills and were challenging to us. Nevertheless, we began to enjoy this more. We started to volunteer to light-up the lanterns for the younger playmates in the neighbourhood instead of carrying our lanterns around. Sometimes, we would get so carried away in this newfound joy that we would burn anything we got our hands on with the candle flame.

Present day, we have a wider range of lanterns for kids to carry around during mid-autumn festival. There are the plastic ones which run on batteries. Some of these are so sophicated that they have music embedded in them. We still have the paper ones but the colorful ones on bamboo frames are a rare find now.

A few days ago, on the 15th day of lunar 8th month (22/9/2010), I was on my way home after an evening tuition. I saw parents helping their young kids alighting their lantern's flame in my neighbourhood playground. Some were demonstrating to their kids how to wave the sparkling sticks while the elderly folks gathered around chattering and savoring their mooncakes and tea. Of course, there were also clusters of mischievous older youngsters squatted at corners figeting the flames. It was quite a relaxing mood then.

I was glad the mid-autumn festive was celebrating with similar traditional fanfare here in my neighbourhood, with candles and paper lanterns. I did not see any plastic batteries-operated lanterns that evening. Maybe, there is a conspiracy amongst the adults that the paper ones are much more fun to "play" with.

I smiled on my way home.