hey everyone it's karin here welcome back to little art talks it's been a while but
happy lunar new year and i wanted to share a story to celebrate now i've already done quite
a few origin stories around lunar new year including the chinese horoscopes or zodiacs
and the reason why people celebrate chinese new years with lots of sound and red envelopes
and today i wanted to share another one did you know that the lunar new year is actually more
than just a day it's not just lunar new year it's a whole festival so it's a 15 day long
celebration where people can celebrate have a good time spend time with their family and it involves
a bunch of different things including hanging some red lanterns now the end of the 15-day celebration
you gotta end it with a bang so they call it Yuánxiāo jié (元宵节) my mandarin is total rubbish
in english you'll often see it translated as the chinese lantern festival lunar new year's usually
starts around february and then the 15th day will be mid february right around valentine's day those
who are familiar with the lunar calendar may also notice that 15 days into a cycle is the full moon
the first full moon of the lunar new year it's often celebrated by hanging bright red or colorful
lanterns in the street and couples will go to the festival and enjoy the full moon together
giving it a reputation of being a really romantic holiday which is why you often see people calling
this the valentine's day of china but how did this tradition of hanging lanterns come about i
think there's a really fun story to go along with this practice of course there's many different
stories that can be all potentially valid but i think this one is just a really fun one
so a long long time ago there was a heavenly crane that came down from heaven onto earth and when the
villagers saw it they hunted and killed the crane now the jade emperor who is sort of like the big
god in the sky was absolutely furious because this was one of his favorite cranes and as a punishment
he decided to sentence that village to be set on fire on the 15th day of the lunar new year
the jade emperor's daughter really sympathized with the villagers and tried to help them out
warning them of her father's plans the villagers were of course very concerned about what to do
now that they have angered the jade emperor but the jade emperor's daughter came up with a plan
she instructed every family to hang large red lanterns around the house set up bonfires on
the streets and explode firecrackers to trick the army into thinking that the village was
on fire on the 15th day of the lunar new year the heavenly troops descended upon this village as
scheduled but when they saw the village ablaze they went back to the jade emperor and reported
their findings now the jade emperor wasn't easily fooled but seeing how much effort
was put into this the emperor decided to forgive them and not set the village on fire
from that day on people celebrate the 15th lunar day every year by carrying lanterns on the streets
exploding firecrackers and fireworks and these are all often read to symbolize good fortune what did
you guys think of the story now of course this is just a legend there's many different explanations
that exist out there for why people celebrate with lanterns and why they're so popular but
this is just one of them if you have another story that you heard growing up i would love to hear it
down below i hope you guys enjoyed this video and learned something new and of course i hope
you all have a wonderful prosperous and healthy new year i hope you guys have a great tiger year
by the way i know i've been gone for quite a while i haven't uploaded very often but one of my
new year's resolutions is to upload more on this channel so let me know what you guys would want
to see for the upcoming videos i've been really busy doing a bunch of other stuff like starting a
business and running it and it's it takes up a lot of time so i hope you guys are understanding but
thank you for still coming back when i do upload if you want to check out what i've been up to be
sure to follow me at all of my other accounts i have my personal account which is @karinyuen at
instagram i also have a personal youtube channel where i upload vlogs i have my business of course
which is art and cove that has a youtube channel as well as a website ArdenCove.com that's where i
sell bags and purses and backpacks that i designed they're all anti-theft waterproof and really great
quality for every day going to school or going to work so i hope you guys will check it out i
think that's everything that i do if you guys have a wonderful day and i'll talk to you next time bye