The English translation of Yuan Xiao Festival (元宵節) as “lantern festival” — celebrated on the 15th day of the first lunar month — has been used in English-speaking countries for ages.
The celebration of dengjie (燈節), which literally means “lantern festival,” has been around since antiquity in China. The Chinese name popularly used today, denglong jie (燈籠節), is a more recent arrival.
On the day of the festival, people decorate buildings with lanterns or carry them around. Consequently, the English translation “lantern festival” could well be a direct translation from the Chinese.
The Oxford English Dictionary has added the term “lantern festival” and provides an example of published text about the festival in Taipei. It cites former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁): “[He] talked about the importance of culture and the cultural institutions he established as Taipei mayor, such as the Hakka Cultural Foundation, the Taipei Film Festival and the Lantern Festival.”
For the Taipei Lantern Festival to make its way into the eminent dictionary is indeed noteworthy.
However, the Taipei festival was not alone in receiving international recognition. For the past few decades, the Pingsi Sky Lantern Festival has risen to international fame as Taiwan’s most renowned cultural event.
While anyone can release lanterns throughout the year, the Pingsi Sky Lantern Festival in New Taipei City remains the highlight of celebrations in Taiwan. People can watch their lantern take flight and marvel as it joins thousands of illuminated orbs shimmering above.
The English for tiandeng (天燈) — a small hot-air balloon made of paper — is “sky lantern,” a term also included in the Oxford dictionary. Its etymology section says that the word is a direct translation from Mandarin and then presents three examples.
The first shows the earliest written record of “sky lantern” in English, which appeared in the bilingual magazine Taiwan Panorama in April 1989: “We’ve been sending up sky lanterns here at the Yuan Hsiao Festival for more than 100 years at the least.”
In China, sky lanterns are called “Kong Ming lanterns,” called so after the “courtesy name” of the Three Kingdoms-period statesman Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮). As the earliest reference to tiandeng was in Taiwan, it is certain that the English term “sky lantern” is a Taiwanese contribution.
With that example, it is clear that “lantern festival” is not the only English translation. Another way of writing it is Yuan Xiao Festival; “yuan xiao” is a transliteration of “元宵” in the Hanyu pinyin romanization system. While Taiwan Panorama had used the Wade-Giles system’s spelling in 1989, Hanyu pinyin is now the global standard for romanizing Mandarin.
This can be seen in the Encyclopedia Britannica, in which the entry for the festival reads: “Lantern Festival, also called Yuan Xiao Festival.”
Hugo Tseng is an associate professor and former chair of Soochow University’s English language and literature department.
Translated by Rita Wang
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