Sky lanterns’ yellow glow travels upwards. Their traveling paths cross one another, making the sky into a mosaic of yellow lines.

COVER STORY Sky Lanterns: Reaching Across the Heavens

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ei I t is a moving sight for most foreigners when they first see a sky lantern; people gather around what looks like an oversized paper bag and write down their hopes and dreams

on it. Once finished, they light a combustible material clipped inside. The warm air gathers within the lantern and slowly lifts it into the air. It moves off, carried on the breeze. After a few minutes it is little more than a twinkling yellow glow in the night sky.

Sky lanterns are one of the most novel and fascinating traditions tied to the Chinese New Year and Lantern Festival. Although simple in design, they are exciting to watch as the fire inside them creates a warm glow and sends them into the heavens. The Chinese beliefs pertaining to this tradition make the lanterns' existence meaningful as well as entertaining. For the two weeks surrounding these two holidays, you can often see sky lanterns silently traversing the night sky, sometimes as one solitary light, sometimes in batches of a hundred or more.

Introduction and HistoryA sky lantern is similar in shape to an upside-down plastic

garbage bag. It is made of paper with a metal brace around the bottom. This brace holds the mouth of the lantern open, and has a clamp in which paper “spirit” money is placed. This money, the same kind you see people burn as tributes to the dead, is set alight, sending hot air into the lantern and allowing it to fly, in the same manner as a hot air balloon takes flight.

Before being sold, the paper money is dipped in kerosene and salad oil and then dried, allowing it to burn for up to ten minutes. The lantern’s flight path is left completely up to the wind, meaning it can fly up to six kilometers on windy days, though it will land in the same spot from which it took off when there is no wind at all.

The sky lantern is believed to have been invented during the Three Kingdoms (三國) period (circa A.D.220-280). Armies used them to convey signals to different camps. One name for sky lanterns is the Kongming (孔明) sky lantern, named after a famous

Sky Lanterns: Reaching Across the Heavens

By Daniel MojahediPhotos by Tai Chin-yuan

Winds coming down from the surrounding mountains keep lanterns traveling upwards and sending messages into the sky.

COVER STORYSky Lanterns: Reaching Across the Heavens

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Every year in Pingxi, visitors come from afar to celebrate the joy of wishing for a good year together.

Sky lantern DIY workshop is available all-year-round in Pingxi.

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military advisor of the time. “Kongming and his men were surrounded by another army,” states Dr. Chang I-hsi (張藝曦), a local historian. “Kongming created the sky lantern to signal to allied armies for help.” Over time, people began using them for more spiritual purposes, writing their dreams and wishes on them and sending them into the heavens. Although sky lanterns now come in almost any color you can imagine, the two traditional colors are red and white.

Usage Instructions When packaged, a sky lantern looks somewhat like a paper

Frisbee. To get it ready for flight, you unfurl it and clip the paper money to the metal brace at the lantern’s bottom. You can then lay it carefully on the ground and write any prayers or good wishes you like on it. Most people these days simply use a magic marker to do so. Once finished, two people hold the lantern taut and upright while a third person lights the paper.

Sky lantern DIY workshop is available all-year-round in Pingxi.

Photo by Daniel Mojahedi

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Despite how dangerous it sounds to send burning paper flying off in random directions, sky lanterns are safe if used intelligently. The lantern will not fall to the ground until the fire has gone out, depriving it of hot air, meaning there is little or no chance of the ground around its landing sight catching fire.

The danger lies in having a sky lantern hit something while in flight. Therefore there are a few common-sense guidelines that lantern-makers encourage people to follow. “Sky lanterns should not be used around tall buildings, residential areas, mountainous regions, or trees,” states Tin Yang (楊毓錫), owner of Redragonfly Net Store (紅蜻蜓小舖), a local distributor of sky lanterns. “It is also not a good idea to use them when the wind is too strong, as the lantern could collapse or be blown to the ground before the fire goes out.” Parks are also off-limits due to bans on any kind of fire.

Where to Buy ThemWhen you ask a local where to buy sky lanterns, they give

you that look of pity reserved for crippled animals and lost foreigners, telling you to go to the town of Pingxi (平溪), in Taipei County, as if this is something you should know before you are allowed into the country. “During the Qing Dynasty (清代; A.D. 1644-1911) the Pingxi area was chaotic,” states Chang I-hsi. “Whenever the people were attacked by robbers or bandits, they would send up sky lanterns asking for help.” Being in a river valley, the place is perfect for launching sky lanterns. Winds coming down from the surrounding mountains keep lanterns trapped in the valley, making sure they do not cause any havoc.

And indeed Pingxi is the place to go. It is located east of the city, near Keelung (基隆) in the Keelung River valley. If you are interested in making the trip, it is an hour-plus train ride outside of Taipei. When I say hour-plus, that means the actual time you are on the train. You have to transfer at Ruifang (瑞芳) and will need to spend up to an hour there waiting for a local train to Pingxi, which is the seventh stop on an eight-stop line. You cannot buy your Ruifang-Pingxi ticket in Taipei itself. The Ruifang train platform has a ticket booth selling all-day passes

to the Pingxi line. As the name suggests, you do not have to buy another ticket to return. The all-day pass will get you wherever you want to go along the line, allowing you to hop on and off the many scheduled trains as often as you like.

If you do not feel like making such a long trek out of the city, there are a few places around Changan West Road (長安西路), just north of the Taipei Main Train Station, where you can buy lanterns—including Guotai Gift Shop (國泰禮品有限公司) at 169 Changan West Road (長安西路169號) and Ai-er Toys (愛兒玩具行) at 135 Changan West Road (長安西路135號). Do not go into these places expecting an enriching cultural experience; these are the kind of spots that during Christmas sell Santa Claus dolls in swimming trunks dancing to a techno version of Jingle Bells. But if your goal is simply to obtain your very own sky lantern in the city, they are among the precious few places that offer the goods.

The source with the greatest selection of sky lanterns is the Redragonfly Net Store. It is an online store, which can be found at www.redup.com.tw. Unfortunately, Redragonfly does not have an English website. If you find it easier to do so, they do allow customers to go to their offices to buy them. They are located at 9F-1, 1 Dunhua South Road, Section 2 (106台北市敦化南路二段9樓之1), right on the corner with Xinyi Road (信義路). While the place is easy to find, it is not clear upon arrival that you are at the right place. This is the office of a CAD (computer-aided design) magazine, and the owner sells sky lanterns as a favor for some relatives in Pingxi. While nobody in the office speaks English, the staff is helpful and friendly, and with a little bit of sign-language and creativity it should not be a problem to get what you want.

Taipei Lantern FestivalIn keeping with the holidays, the Taipei City

Government will hold its annual Lantern Festival celebrations at CKS Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) from March third to the eleventh. Events include concerts, performances, and thousands of different lanterns. For more information, check out the official website at http://www.taipei-festival2007.com.

Have a happy and safe Chinese Holiday Season.

The annual Taipei Lantern Festival will be held again at CKS Memorial Hall this year . (Photo by Wang Neng-yu)

Writing with a calligraphy pen; blessing in the traditional way.

An old town like Pingxi holds sky lantern festival around the Chinese New Year.

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