A special Mid Autumn Festival with Floating Lanterns

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中秋节
Mid Autumn Festival​

22 September 2010​

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It's 中秋节 Mid Autumn Festival again.
The lovely Festival that relives the tale of the lady in the Moon Chang'er 嫦儿, the childhood story that every one of us remembers fondly.

Every year, the children would walk around on this night, carrying lanterns and competing how lovely and colourful their lanterns are.
And the whole family would enjoy a nice evening sitting out in the courtyard and appreciating the moon 赏月 and enjoying a lovely treat of mooncake 月饼 and drinking tea.

Such a idyllic setting for a romantic tale of Chang'er.

But of course, here in this photography forum, we won't be talking about the tale of Chang'er, but rather we would like to share with all a special Mid Autum Festival celebrated with a little different type of Lanterns - the Loy Kathrong Lanterns from Chiang Mai, also known as Kong Ming Deng 孔明灯.

Both SereneXMM and I last played with 孔明灯 in October 2009 when we attended the most memorable Loy Krathong (Yee Peng) festival in Chiang Mai.
In our naughty-ness, we bought 4 pieces of these hand-made (with rice paper) big lanterns back to Singapore.
Don't ask me how I carried it. I just did. Must have squeezed it into my big big luggage.

Anyway, on this lovely Mid Autumn Festival, with the round 15th day moon hanging in mid-sky, shining brightly down at mankind, we invited close friends for a celebration.
Awaiting execitedly, the children knew that this year will be a little different with the big lanterns.
And not only big lanterns, but lanterns that would float high up in the air, filled with hot air!

This is only a simple series of record shots to share with our beloved photographic community.
We hope you will enjoy them, though we must admit that a few were not well taken with slow shutter speed.

 

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Imagine. The amount of excitement not only in the children's hearts but also in the adults'.
For it is not every day that you would see and even more, play with a real, genuine, authentic Loy Krathong Lantern.
Floating lanterns designed to float and fly up hundreds of feet up into the sky...

Please pardon the slow shutter speed.

 

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I said: "Let's just let them fly all the way to as high as they can..."
The daughter says: "Papa, cannot! You said the Singapore Government say it is illegal to let them fly loose like that. No, we must tie threads to fly them like kites like that..."
What to do? Law-abiding children must be listened to...

 

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I asked: "How high do you want your 孔明灯 Kong Ming Deng to fly up to?"
The youngest: "High! As high up as possible!"
The son: "Short one enough. I want to have full control of the lantern." Sensible boy!

 

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And in the light of the Full Moon, we lighted up the round candle and let it warm up the air within the lantern.

 

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Slowly the lantern gets filled up with hot, rising air...

 

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And just so nice, the neighbour's car reversed and its headlamps shone directly into the lantern, creating a light-up effect!

 

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Well almost there....

 

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... 3-2-1 and Lift Off!!!

 

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The Moon must be wondering: "What sort of funny imposter is that!?"

 

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The lanterns did fly high and proud.
A sight to behold.
Beautiful and majestic they were.
But soon, the candles burnt out and the lantern slowly descended back to ground.
This one decided to land on a side branch of the tree outside the house.
Quite a view, I must say...

 

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The attraction of the Lanterns extends to even the elders of the family...

 

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Very soon, the whole family joins in the fun..

 

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And the family friends follow suit!
What a time for everyone...

 

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Haha... Another casualty for the night.
This lantern tipped over a little and got burnt by its own fire.
What I found most interesting was, as the lanterns flew up, the Candle wax would burnt and drip downwards and at the same time, emitting a mechanical kind of 'whooshing' sound.
I don't recall hearing this sound earlier in Thailand...

 

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The Moon and the Lantern do make a good combination, particularly for the compositioning of phtographs.

 

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Another casualty...
This time round, our final one.
The candle slowly burns out. And the wind takes out the buoyancy of the lantern as the hot air reduces...
Slowly the lantern descends back to Earth...

 

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Finally, the last lantern has come back to ground level.
And it's getting late.
The friends have had a great karaoke session and enjoyed their nice mooncakes and tea, and are ready to go home.
Here, we dealt with the last lantern...

 

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So with a last lantern, ends our little festive celebration of the Mid Autumn Festival.
We hope every one had as enjoyable, as meaningful a Festival as we had.
Thank you all for viewing.
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If you have enjoyed the pictures here, then allow me to interest you on the actual Loy Krathong photo-trip we had:
The photos are here in ClubSNAP:

Loy Krathong - Yi Peng festival in Chiang Mai

Thank you all once again.
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