The annual Pingsi Sky Lantern Festival in New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) opens tomorrow with the launch of a 2.4m-tall main lantern full of fingerprints and blessings, organizers said.
Festival activities are to be held on three days: tomorrow, Sunday and on Feb. 22.
Fingerprints were used as a decorative element on the sky lanterns because everyone’s fingerprints are unique, symbolizing the special nature of every wish written on the lanterns, the New Taipei City Tourism and Travel Department said.
On the first day of the festival tomorrow, which is the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, a main lantern decorated with children’s fingerprints will be released into the night sky from Jingtong Elementary School.
On Sunday, a main lantern decorated with the fingerprints of 1,000 couples is to be launched from Pingxi Junior High School to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
The festival’s final event, which is to be held at the Shifen Sky Lantern Square, is scheduled for the 15th day of the Lunar New Year, which is the Lantern Festival. The centerpiece of the night is to be a lantern decorated with beautiful landscape photographs from around the world.
The sky lantern festival attracts tens of thousands of visitors to Pingsi each year as the district is the only place in the nation where sky lanterns are allowed to be released.
Fodor’s Travel — the world’s largest publisher of travel guides — in 2013 named the festival as one of 14 in the world that a person should attend in their lifetime.
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