Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1918 — SPRING FESTIVAL IN CHINA [ARTICLE]

SPRING FESTIVAL IN CHINA

Beginning of the Year Is a Time of Rejoicing Throughout the Whole Country. In the United States one knows that spring has come when he sees boys playing marbles and flying kites. In China, says the Christian Science Monitor, there are regular spring-play-ing festivals that all the people have a part in and w’hlch are especially interesting for children. Just when the spring festival comes depends on the moon. It is the beginning of the year in China, and In the first moon the magistrates and other'important persons in the town go out in a procession “to meet the spring.” . It is at the lantern festival, the 15th of the first month, that the children have the best time. Brightly colored lanterns are everywhere, at the doers of shops and houses, and carried in processions. Boughs of evergreen are also placed above the doors, and there is an abundance of “moon cakes,” little round sweet rice cakes. The boys dress up in all sorts of fantastic clothes, sing, dance and give little plays. They wear masks of animals and of human faces. Companies of them go about through the streets of their villages, and from one village to another. Now and then a group of maskers will be seen on high stilts. There is a very pretty dance where every dancer carries a lighted lantern. This is called the lantern dance.