The children have been making 100s lantern hanging up inside and outside their building and fully dressing up for the occasion; they made their own lantern entered for the competition. The evening was very exciting fill with party mood. The initial Lantern Festival is to share this amazing culture with the local community. Suppose most of the local community would be fairly interested in such a different and unique culture event.
At the event and we invited people needed blessing and wishing to write their name on the lantern. This was the traditional custom to write their wishes and problems which they would like to get rid of, onto the lantern and hope the lantern would make their wishes come true and take away all their problems. People suffer from illness, hopefully this event could give them a sense of warmth, touching moments which could be a valuable memory for their entire life.
The Mayor went round the car park seeing all the children with their colourful lanterns. "Lantern competition start now” said Jenny. "I can not choose a winner. They all beautiful!" said Mayor, "there is a present for each entry." The children were ever so happy and relief. The children started the dragon dance at the Car Park. There is lots of movement follow the sound of the drum in the dark. The excitement drowned out much of the red heart shaped sky Lantern practically stood out and all the children were sound rounding it. People were shouting “Higher! Higher!” Jenny was shouting "No pull it down! Down! Down!" It is amazing to see a paper lantern flight up. For the health and safety reason we not allowed to let it go. The children were shouting “More! More!” That is the highlight of the Lantern Festival!
"Most importantly, we deeply believe that this Lantern Festival event could be someone’s most valuable memories EVER". Lorraine Kerr, English teacher said:" My children enjoy every minute of it, especially showing off their own creation of lantern and seeing the sky lantern flight up".
Elaine Hutching, course manageress of WEA said “this is the best moment of Chinese Culture lesson. You simply just couldn’t imagine how the atmosphere was if you weren’t there, it was such a phenomenal night.”
The History of sky lantern
The sky Lantern (Kong Ming Lantern
) was the first hot air balloon in the world are claimed to date as far back as the 3rd century AD as a type of signaling balloon. It was originally invented in the Chinese three kingdoms ( near Manchester sister city Wuhan, China) by the best left hand man of Liu Bei called "Kong Ming". In one of the battle against Chao Tsao, he was very ill and trapped in one of the city with all the communication been cut off by Chao Tsao army. He then invented the Sky Lantern to send the information off for reinforcements. The information was written on the Sky Lantern itself. Ultimately, the reinforcement arrived in time and defeats the Chao Tsao army and save the entire city. Since Kong Ming, Sky lantern has been a truly remarkable culture for the Chinese Community.
It is likely that this technological discovery is misattributed to Zhuge Liang because of the Chinese historical practice of attributing great discoveries to significant historical figures rather than to the actual inventors. According to the sinologist and historian of science Joseph Needham, the Chinese experimented with sky lanterns as early as the 3rd century BC.
Technological Discovery
They are constructed from oiled rice paper on a bamboo frame, and contain a small candle or fuel cell composed of a waxy flammable material. When lit, the flame heats the air inside the lantern, thus lowering its density causing the lantern to rise into the air. The Sky Lantern is only airborne for as long as the flame stays alight, after which the lantern floats back to the ground. They can achieve quite a height and launching them in strong winds is not recommended. In the modern days, Sky Lantern have been used broadly in Far East use for celebrating occasions such as New Year, Lantern Festival, religion, blessing, wishing, weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries and etc. In Taiwan, there is a Sky Lantern Festival that people celebrates annually; the highest record was 5600 lanterns were launch at the festival.Photographs from the Manchester Lantern Festival
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