Night Lanterns at Pingxi

The Chinese New Year celebrations officially end with the Lantern Festival, which occurs 15 days into the new year. It sounds really spectacular, we sadly wouldn't be staying long enough to see it, since this was our last full day in Taiwan.

The good news was that An An and Chian Chian took us to Pingxi, where impressive crowds of people were sending lanterns into the air daily for fun. It was a fantastic and poignant way to mark the end of our Chinese New Year celebrations.

At about noon, we took the MRT (again) to the end of the Muzha line, but this time, instead of riding gondolas, we hopped onto some buses. I've only gotten carsick once in my life, but this bus ride came close to being the second time. Pingxi is in a very mountainous area, and the roads were narrow, winding, and full of traffic. It was a good thing that we took a bus, because they were denying all car traffic (except residents of course) from driving up the mountain in an attempt to control the traffic.

Since it was still early to be lighting night lanterns, we wandered around the little village and took our time looking around. While looking for ways to burn time, we did the single Stupidest Scariest Thing we did all trip. My cousins were delighted that they finally found an activity to scare the shit out of Fearless Jenn. (Yes, apparently I have a reputation for being "fearless", not sure where that comes from...)

So there's an old suspended train track that runs through the village, and as we were strolling around around, we saw people occasionally walking on the tracks overhead with their little kids. Neat, my cousins thought. We should go walk on the train tracks too.

Me: But what if there's a train?
Them: Umm...there's probably no train.
Me: Probably?

Then I think, well those tracks do look pretty rusty and unmaintained. What kind of train could run on that? So we figure out how to get on the train tracks, and started walking along, being careful not to step on rotten wood planks and not to let our feet fall through the gaps.

At some point, we realize that we are really high up. Furthermore, there are people walking the opposite direction, so sometimes you have to stand on the very edge of these splintering planks so that two can people squeeze by each other. No guard rails or anything keeping us from falling. And...OF COURSE. We eventually heard a train clanging warning bells and roaring up behind us.

That was definitely a moment of despair. Apparently my cousins didn't know there was a train either. Somehow I managed to just keep putting one jello-y foot in front of another as quickly as I could and finally made it to someplace where we could jump off safely. (Plus in retrospect I think the train slowed down due to all the people on the tracks, thank goodness.)

Lesson that you could have learned from a cartoon: There's always a train.

Luckily, we found some longxutang (dragon whisker candy) to make me feel better. I ate like five packages.

Lighting the Night Lanterns

The night lanterns at Pingxi are like awesome little hot air balloons that you send into the air with your wishes for the new year. They're made out of colored paper, and people typically write a little message about their hopes for the year before lighting it and watching it fly out of sight. I saw some people who wrote long elaborate thoughtful paragraphs on all four faces of the lantern. I wasn't feeling quite so poetic, but I definitely did have a wish for the year!

There's a circular bamboo ring at the bottom of each lantern to help keep its shape, and there are wires crossing the center of the ring so that you can attach kerosene-soaked stacks of parchment for fuel.

It's a pretty amazing sight to see everyone releasing these lanterns into the air all at the same time, especially since they're representing everyone's hopes and dreams. Here's a video I found (lots more on YouTube):


The best part is how high they fly, because they become tinier and tinier in the sky, until they literally disappear from sight. We never saw one coming back down. (Well except for the ones that went down Hindenburg-style shortly after takeoff. Not sure what to make of the symbolism for those people's hopes and dreams.) My cousins say that eventually, when the fuel runs out, the lantern itself burns up, leaving only the metal wires to fall back to the ground. I was somewhat concerned about the environmental implications of this, but they seemed to think that they would land "in the forest" and not bother anyone. Hrrrm.

But ultimately, what a great way to spend our last evening!