With its plump body and sticking-out tongue, New Taipei City’s Lantern Festival main lantern “Green Little Dragon” makes an early debut

Reported by You T-Ru / Taipei

Traditional, heart-shaped, pumpkin-shaped, we’ve seen all kinds of sky lantern designs—but have you ever seen a snake-shaped one? The highly guarded main lantern of the 2013 Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival in New Taipei City, the Lantern Festival main lantern “Green Little Dragon,” was unveiled today (5th). With its round, coiling body spiraling upward, half-closed eyes, and a small red tongue sticking out, it looks adorable and endearing.


▲ The Lantern Festival main lantern “Green Little Dragon” is unveiled. (Photo / Provided by New Taipei City Tourism Bureau)

There are heart-shaped lanterns for Valentine’s Day and pumpkin lanterns for Halloween, so for the Year of the Snake’s Lantern Festival, the New Taipei City Tourism Bureau overcame production and launching challenges to specially create a large-scale snake-shaped lantern, the main lantern “Green Little Dragon.” To surprise the public, the design of “Green Little Dragon” was not revealed until today’s press conference. The actual lantern will make its first appearance on February 24th, the 15th day of the first lunar month, at the “Hand in Hand for Reunion, Celebrating Lantern Festival” event at Shifen Square. At that time, the public will witness for the first time a 12-meter-long snake-shaped lantern slowly ascending into the sky. Amid the warm glow of the lanterns, everyone will pray together for good fortune, health, safety, and prosperity in the Year of the Snake.

The results of the “Love Symbol Character Poll,” which garnered much attention on the event’s official website last month, were also announced today. The character “Ban” (companion), depicting two people leaning on each other, was the favorite among netizens and claimed the title of “2013 Love Symbol Character.” Along with the announcement of the love symbol character, an illustration created by popular online couple illustrators ZhiZhi & LaiLai for the character “Ban” was also unveiled. The sweet artwork adds a romantic touch to this year’s first lantern festival, which happens to fall on Valentine’s Day—the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.

In addition, to ensure everyone has a fun and safe experience, the organizers also announced traffic control, shuttle bus, and fire safety plans today. In addition to promoting regulations for launching sky lanterns, they also informed the public about traffic control routes on February 17th and 24th. Shuttle buses have been arranged in line with the traffic control measures: the one-way fare is NT$50 when boarding from Muzha, NT$30 when boarding from Shiding District and Ruifang District, and NT$10 when boarding within Pingxi District. Return trips on the shuttle buses are free of charge.