Pingxi’s Sky Lantern Festival – 2132期

The annual Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival will be held grandly just a few days away from the Lantern Festival. On the regular basis, there are three lantern praying activities in Pingxi. One is on February 22 in Jingtong elementary school（菁桐國小）, another is on February 27 in Pingxi junior high school and the other is on March 5 in Shifen square（十分廣場）.This year marks the 17th year of the festival and it is the one of two tremendous Taiwanese folk activities on Lantern Festival. It would appeal tourists around the world to come to celebrate this event every year.

In the past, people started to launch sky lanterns for the celebration of great events and as a way to wish people good luck. Sky lanterns were launched only for two or three days. Nowadays, tourists can launch it every day, and there are about one thousand launched sky lanterns a day in average.

Some people have concerns about whether the lanterns would cause some pollution, or even cause fire if they fall in the woods. In response to this question, Wen-quan Li（李溫泉）, the spokesman of Pingxi District, says “Although Pingxi was famous for its coal mining industry in the early days, the natural environment has been kept very well. In addition, the type of trees grown here will not catch fire easily, together with the humid weather in four seasons, so people should not be worried too much.” Now, they also encourage people to pick up sky lanterns remains, and people who do this will get some rewards. It helps reducing the amount of garbage.

Besides the activities in the Lantern Festival, the sky lantern police station（天燈派出所）in Jingtong will hold a LED show every night for representing special culture of Pingxi.