Marking the end of annual Lunar New Year festivities, hundreds came together in Pingxi, Taiwan, on Saturday (February 11) to write wishes onto lanterns and then send them into the sky.
The Pingxi Sky Lantern festival has been held after Chinese New Year for nineteen consecutive years, and has turned into one of the country’s most popular festivals.
Environment protection groups have criticized the event for generating too much plastic waste in the mountains close to the event site, although according to the organisers measures have been taken to clean up and recycle the trash.
“If they can use environmentally friendly materials for this tradition, I think it’s acceptable to do it once a year. We have not participated in this kind of event before, if the tradition can continue, I think it’s acceptable to have some trade-offs between environment protection and tradition,” said Wang Hsiang-lin, who came with his girlfriend to wish for good health in the coming year.
This year, the event was jointly organised by New Taipei City and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association to strengthen relations and bolster tourism between the two countries, according to the organisers. Mikio Numata, Japan’s representative to Taiwan, attended the festival together with New Taipei City officials.
Attendees hand-wrote wishes for the coming year on the colourful sky lanterns before posing for pictures and finally sending them into the sky.
Bonnie Lin, who lives in neighbouring town Keelung, participated for the second time after having success with her wishes the year before.
“Yes, because last year I also came to make a wish so my work went smoothly (last year), all the things I did were very lucky. This is why I told myself that I have to come here once again,” she said.
Reflecting this year’s theme, the main lantern showed scenes of famous touristic spots in both Taiwan and Japan. It was six metres tall, dwarfing the normal lanterns that were sent off by revellers.
(Reuters)
