Monday was the fifteenth day of the new Chinese Year, which is also known as the Lantern Festival. Fireworks are replaced with colorful incense ….
and floating lanterns are released in the sky. This caused a colorful block of traffic on my way to school, as I take a short cut thru the Golden Temple (in Kunming, China) to get there.
The buses had to wait for the pineapple bike to unload.
This boy was just waiting for it to get warm.
There were also a lot of colorful vendors selling fruits and vegetables. Those log looking things are a turnip that that crunches like a carrot but is slightly sweet like watermelon rind.
Plus, there was my favorite street fair, sizzling potatoes hot from the wok.
This lady was gluing the floating lanterns together with a toxic substance that just added to the wonderful air in China.
She also had an array of incense and joss paper–also known as ghost money– which is a special folded paper that is burned instead of cash.
Just imagine what it would be like if everyone burned money on holidays to ignite a blessing. Think of how it would change politics and our priorities, what we worry about and how we treat others. Hey lady, do you want to set up shop on the flip side?
It was a beautiful morning and definitely not for the color blind. But maybe they should rename Kunming’s Golden Temple the Yellow, Fuchsia, Red and Leopard Print Temple.
