Taiwan Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in 2004

The Taiwan Lantern Festival (Chinese: 臺灣燈會; pinyin: Táiwān dēnghuì) is an annual event hosted by the Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taiwan to celebrate the Lantern Festival.

Many activities are held across Taiwan during the Lantern Festival; thousands of sky lanterns are lit over Pingxi District (平溪). In Yanshuei District, the firecrackers ceremony of the Wumiao Temple is also one of the important activities.[citation needed] The notoriously dangerous Tainan Yanshuei Fireworks Display, also known as the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, ("beehive of fireworks") was originally celebrated to ward off evil and disease from the town. The Taipei Pingxi Sky Lanterns were released originally to let others know that the town was safe. These lanterns are decorated with wishes and images relating to the owner. These two events are known together as "Fireworks in the South, Sky Lanterns in the North."