Chaozhou Lantern

Chaozhou lanterns are framed in bamboo, lead wire and silk paper and dressed with brocade and embroidery, in two main kinds — standing screen lanterns and hanging painted lanterns. In 2008 the craft was inscribed, as 'caideng (Chaozhou lantern)', on the second batch of national ICH.

Lantern-making fuses framing, pasting, painting, modelling and embroidery; screen lanterns often take opera stories as their theme, building figures and scenes in three dimensions that glow with light from within — earthy and richly local, a key adornment of festivals and deity-parades.

Lanterns feature in the Lantern Festival and deity-parading customs; 'parading the lanterns' is an important Chaoshan rite expressing wishes for blessing and good fortune, a vivid emblem of Chaoshan festive culture and folk taste.

During the Lantern Festival and other holidays, lantern displays and lantern processions are common in the streets and squares of the Chaozhou old town.