Spring has ended in China
Tonight at midnight, the streets of China and Chinatowns around the world will be decorated with lanterns made of colored paper with a burning candle inside. This is how the last, fifteenth, day of the Spring Festival is traditionally celebrated - a day that has several names: Lantern Festival, Family Unity Festival and Yuanxiao Festival.

According to tradition, on this day the whole family should get together and after a festive feast at midnight go to the nearest garden, where many lanterns made by local craftsmen are hung. They are hung not only for beauty - riddles are written on paper lanterns, and those gathered compete in guessing them. In general, Chinese people of all ages love riddles, especially hieroglyphic ones. And recently, all-China riddle competitions and TV shows have become popular. The spirits promise their favor to the one who guesses correctly.
Already a week before the start of the Lantern Festival, trays with hundreds of yuan xiao - small starch balls with a sweet filling (it was these balls that gave the holiday its second name) appeared on the streets of Chinese cities. The absolutely bland and tasteless starch shell symbolizes the routine and gray everyday life of our lives, and the sweet filling is the natural result of everyday persistent efforts. Everyone should try soup with boiled yuan xiao on this day, although it is not so easy for an unaccustomed person to get comfortable with the philosophical combination of flavors.
The longest Chinese holidays end with the hanging of lanterns. In addition to “family” lanterns, those posted by local authorities also appear on the streets and in parks. They are hung not at midnight on the holiday, but a couple of days earlier - so that the workers have time to decorate all the streets and spend the holiday, as it should be, with their families.
On this day, not only does every Chinese family feel like one, all Chinese feel like one family. That's why Yuanxiao is called Reunion Day or Family Unity Day. While the Chinese family is split, and relatives on opposite sides of the Taiwan Strait are still deprived of the opportunity to get together, but, as the leaders of the PRC confidently say, the happy day of universal reunification is not too long to wait.

IVAN J-ZHUKOV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 28 dated 02/19/2000, p. 7