Taipei Lantern Festival’s Happy Lantern Sea to Light Up Early on Jan. 25 Next Year

By MOOK Travel & Life Chen Guanxin, compiled and reported

 

The 2014 Taipei Lantern Festival will be held from February 7 to February 16 at the Flower Expo’s “Fine Arts and Yuanshan Parks.” The “Happy Taipei Lantern Sea” along Zhongshan North Road will be lit up early on January 25, 2014, shining brightly in downtown Taipei during the Lunar New Year holiday. With the zodiac animal of the year, the “horse,” as its theme, the 2014 Taipei Lantern Festival features 11 lantern zones: the Prayer Lantern Zone, Classical Melody Lantern Zone, Scenic Lantern Zone, Time Corridor Lantern Zone, Happy Taipei Lantern Sea, Fantasy Kingdom Lantern Zone, Eight Steeds Journey Lantern Zone, Nostalgic Toys Lantern Zone, Landscape Lantern Zone, Student Lantern Zone, and International/Corporate Lantern Zone.

The 2013 Taipei Lantern Festival first introduced the beautifully romantic and deeply urban “Happy Lantern Sea” along Zhongshan North Road and parks along the MRT line, which received widespread acclaim. The internationally renowned Regent Taipei Hotel also decorated its plaza and roadside trees during this period, complementing the lantern sea and delighting visitors with a beautiful surprise. This year, the “Happy Taipei Lantern Sea” will light up early on January 25, 2014, creating a vibrant and colorful Zhongshan North Road.

 

Huang Lü-jin-ju, Director of Taipei City’s Civil Affairs Bureau, stated that the 2014 Taipei Lantern Festival aims to present a colorful and fairy-tale-like style. Using the horse—an animal often depicted in Chinese and foreign stories as soaring through the skies and carrying dreams—the festival hopes to bring a unique New Year experience. For example, the “Eight Steeds Journey Lantern Zone” draws inspiration from the significant Chinese painting “Eight Steeds,” using traditional lantern installations to depict eight colorful steeds galloping through clouds, traveling miles at night, and soaring with wings, bringing the horses from the painting into the real world to stroll through the Flower Expo Park with citizens. The “Fantasy Kingdom Lantern Zone” uses “children’s playgrounds” and “cartoon characters” as design elements to create a magnificent and colorful dream world.

 

The 2014 Taipei Lantern Festival will also highlight the educational and entertaining essence unique to traditional lantern festivals, featuring zones themed around history, classics, and traditional life. For instance, the “Classical Melody Lantern Zone” will focus on the touching filial piety story “The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety,” presenting traditional tales in a fresh new light. The “Scenic Lantern Zone” draws inspiration from historical anecdotes to create grand and majestic historical scenes. The “Time Corridor Lantern Zone” is inspired by the daily lives of ordinary people in early Taiwan, recreating cultural elements such as weddings, one-year-old birthday ceremonies, plowing fields, and harvests. The “Nostalgic Toys Lantern Zone” will transport visitors through time with playful and nostalgic lantern decorations. The “Prayer Lantern Zone” allows visitors to pray for good fortune in the coming year as they visit the lantern festival at the start of the New Year.

 

Additionally, the “Happy Taipei Lantern Sea” and “Landscape Lantern Zone” will decorate trees and lawns, combining a large number of fragmented lights, specialty lanterns, and other light sources to create a dazzling and colorful lantern festival atmosphere along Sections 1 to 3 of Zhongshan North Road (from Civic Boulevard to Zhongshan Bridge), including the medians, roadside trees, and both Yuanshan and Fine Arts Parks.

 

 

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