The beautiful lanterns along the Qinhuai River, which are a signature of Nanjing, bring festive atmosphere to Nanjing citizens every year.
The Confucius Temple area thronged with people visiting lanterns before 2018 Lantern Festival.
Colorful lanterns light up the city and turns Nanjing into a fairyland. It’s the topic and story in everyone’s Wechat post.
The lanterns lit up the sky in Nanjing Confucius Temple Scenic Area during the 2018 Lantern Festival.
The lanterns will be set off on 28th this month. For the moment, the lantern craftsmen are busy getting everything prepared in the cold.
Let’s get a close look.
The lantern workshop on the Ming Dynasty Wall of Zhonghuamen Gate
As early as a week ago, workers built a 300-meter-long shed on the wall of Zhonghuamen Gate to prepare for the Nanjing Qinhuai Lantern Festival.
At the welding area, the reporter saw the workers doing some modeling with the electric welding. Here's a finished look. Can you guess what it is?
It's a sweet little pig. Such a shape requires hundreds of wires, one by one, to be welded together.
In the 300-meter long shed, 136 workers are expected to spend 30 days assembling 31 sets of large-scale lights which could be displayed from Zhonghuamen to Wudingmen, including hundreds of flower lanterns.
When lantern sets are finished modeling, they’re sent to the handcraft area to get papered with silk cloth. Welding, pasting, hand-painted, spray painting, and light fixture installation, the lanterns are endowed with life after these steps and bring beauty and romance to the city.
Treasure bowl lanterns and pig lanterns will become the new online celebrities
The 33rd China Qinhuai Lantern Fair and Nanjing-Xi'an Lantern Fair will be composed of eight exhibition areas, the scale of which is the biggest in all years.
Lanterns will connect the Ming Dynasty city wall scenery belt, Bailuzhou Park, Qinhuai Scenic Belt and the Great Baoen Temple Heritage and Scenic Area, form a once-in-a-lifetime view that across “land and water”.
During the exhibition, some of the novel lanterns and pig lamps will be presented since 2019 is the year of pig in Chinese culture.
Wang Maosen, art director of the Ming Dynasty city wall exhibition area of Nanjing Qinhuai Lantern Festival, said there will be a 10m high, 14m wide pig lantern at the foot of the East Zhonghua Gate Historical Culture Block.
There will be a 10m tall “treasure bowl” lantern this year at Zhonghuamen Gate.
In order to make everyone feel the culture and history of Nanjing, the organizers of the Qinhuai Lantern Festival also made a group of lights called "crossing the Six Dynasties" this year.
To ensure that the lanterns of Nanjing Qinhuai Lantern Festival will be held on time on Jan. 28, nearly 300 lantern makers are working about 15 hours a day in various exhibition areas.
Most of the lantern artists come from Zigong city of Sichuan Province that has been called “the home of lanterns”. It has become their routine that is normal to spend the Spring Festival outside.
Let’s look forward to the Qinhuai Lantern Festival in 2019.
（Source：ourjiangsu.com)
