Mid Autumn lantern

Talking about the Mid Autumn Festival, about the moon cake, we should not forget the lantern. Together with moon cake, the image of the colourful lantern is another sweet memory for every of us. I really can't remember when I had my first lantern, and it was either a butterfly or golden fish? And those colourful tiny candles for the lantern. A sweet childhood memory gone with the years.

            The lantern attracts not only children but also adult...

I'm sure many people still remember the self-made lantern with two condensed milk cans. One at the bottom as a wheel and another one on top - with the candle inside - rotates when we push the can-wheel...it was a big fun: the shrill sound from the cans, the noise from the kid's crowd running after the lantern. Today it's hard to see this kind of thing - the lantern made of cans. Out of date?

          Butterfly is one of most popular glass paper lantern, together with golden fish.

It's good to have the traditional lantern back because just few years ago, everywhere was full of those ugly plastic lantern imported from China and the thought that the glass paper lantern may be gone forever scared me... so I'm happy to see it back and it seems that the youth loves it...hope it's not a  sudden temporary come-back. The lantern street in district 5 was so crowded last night, that I was almost stuck in the middle for almost half an hour.  Back to the old days I remember we even had a parade where hundred of kids holding the lantern, walking around the downtown of Saigon. It was very nice.

          The anger bird also becomes a lantern...very up-to-date tradition. 

           The plastic lantern still in display, but they no longer attracts the youth...

There is one thing more, it would be good if we could see it again in the future: small figurines made of clay or flour, very colourful, sometime they were decorated with feathers. They were mostly animals from the myth like the unicorn, the phoenix, the dragon...when I was a little kid, my mom took me a small shop, right at the corner, my eyes stared at these little animals, how much I wished to touch, to hold them in my hands. We called them "con giống". Nowadays I can't find it anywhere.

          Lương Nhữ Học street in district 5, turned into a lantern market, so crowded at night. 

           The young couples are looking for their favourite traditional fold type lantern... 

           A little girl seems get lost among these lanterns and the crowd...

              The famous lantern with moving figures inside - đèn kéo quân

One of my dream lantern was "đèn kéo quân", not because it looks gorgeous but because those rotating figures inside the lantern, I kept wondering why the horse running, why the human moving inside that red box...and that the only thing caught my attention and my desire to have one. As far as I remember there was only one time in my many-year life I got that đèn kéo quân.   

           another shop in Tran Hung Dao street...the sale suddenly getting busy in the last days...

The mid Autumn festival is very often accompanied by the rains as August is the peak of the raining season, it happened many times that we couldn't go out with friends, to light up our lanterns, waiting hopelessly for the rain stop...So, let's hope no rain  tomorrow, everyone can enjoy the lantern parade either in the neighbourhood or down to the Saigon centre, where I'm sure all the festival activities will cause the traffic. For me, I better stay at home to enjoy our homemade moon cake or the special moon cake that I bought for my nephew in occasion of his shop opening - a pig with her piglets, a symbol of prosperity.

          My homemade moon cake filled with mung bean, melon seeds and green tea flavor...

            or you may like the pig's family - a gift to my nephew.