United States Events and Festivals

2/01/2009 - 3/31/2009Monterey Park Lantern Festival

California's large Chinese community celebrates the end of the Chinese New Year with this colourful festival in the city's Monterey Park. Celebrated on the 15th day of the first full moon of the New Year, this is one of the most significant dates in the Chinese calendar and a time of great revelry and celebrations. It's also a time to be spent with friends, families and loved ones. The Monterey Park Lantern Festival has a great social atmosphere with attractions for visitors of all ages. The origins of the event are thought to date back several thousand years to the Han Dynasty when it is said that a village angered the Jade Emperor in heaven by killing his goose for food. As revenge, he planned to destroy the village in a hail of fire. But the village was warned of the act by a fairy who instructed each household to light lanterns. Looking down from heaven, the Emperor thought the village was already ablaze and passed it by. As a celebration of this, the Lantern Festival sprang up and is now celebrated by Chinese communities all over the world. The event in Monterey Park includes a spectacular lantern display, cultural performances, historic exhibitions, food events, dragon dances, firework displays and other traditional Chinese entertainments.