Festivals · Fifteenth day of the first lunar month — the first full moon after Chinese New Year, and the formal end of the holiday.
The night the New Year period closes, and visually the best of it. Lanterns go up in parks and old towns, riddles are written on paper slips and hung from them for passers-by to solve, and the crowds come back out after two weeks of eating indoors. Xi'an's city wall carries one of the largest displays in the country; Nanjing's Confucius Temple quarter has run its lantern market for centuries. It is the one traditional festival built entirely around looking at something after dark, which makes it the easiest to photograph and the easiest to enjoy without any Chinese.
Eat — Tangyuan (汤圆) — glutinous rice balls in warm syrup, filled with black sesame or peanut. Round, like the moon and like a reunited family.
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