Yuan Xiao Jie Kuai Le! (Happy Chinese Lantern Festival)

Time passes so fast, it seems just yesterday that we celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Pig and today marks the 15th day of the lunar Chinese New year (Yuan Xiao) which is also the last day of the celebration of CNY. On this day, traditionally, "Riddles lanterns" are hang up. Riddles are hang at the end of the lanterns for people to guess, the ones that got the correct answers are usually rewarded with a prize.



Other than this, the traditional food to have on this day is Yuan xiao (or better known as tang yuan), it is a kind of sticky sweet dumpling made from sticky rice flour stuffed with sweet fillings (sometimes peanuts, red beans or sesame); simply made by boiling it in hot syrup water and eaten as a dessert. It symbolizes family reunion, completeness (Yuan man), happiness and a sweet life.


I remembered when I was little, my parents and us (Jie, kiddo and I) used to go to the community centres or basketball courts where the residential community (RCs) held these festival celebrations. I'll try to "look smart" staring hard at the riddles while having no clue what the answers to the riddles are hahaha...Mom used to make these tang yuans at home and as usual the KPO (busybody) me, will want to 'help' her roll the tang yuan, hmm, somehow the tang yuan that I rolled always turned out ovalish rather than roundish hahaha Fond memories :) This year, I'll be keeping the tradition, but instead of rolling the tang yuans myself, I'll be boiling and treating "The One" to a feast of nicely rolled sesame and red bean filling tang yuans brought from the Asian groceries. Perhaps, next time when I have kids, I'll do the traditional tang yuan rollings so that they too will have fond memories like I do...

Yuan Xiao Jie Kuai Le!

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With love from PoohBear

Photos courtesy from http://www.chinapictures.org and http://www.chinapage.com