My Childhood Cellophane Lantern

This was my childhood cellophane Rooster lantern. Once a year on the Mid-Autumn Festival (aka Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival), people would eat mooncakes and kids would carry their lanterns and have a parade around the neighbourhood and play with sparklers etc. In those days, most lanterns were cellophane or the cheaper paper (accordion style) ones and you would put a lighted candle inside. The metal coil holder at the underbelly of my rooster lantern is the candle holder. You would have a string attached to the lantern and coil the string around a wooden stick handle.

Nowadays, kids carry plastic lanterns which are inflatable, they are lit by battery-operated bulbs and some even have music. They look and feel so faraway from the traditional lanterns. I still love the cellophane types, which are still being sold side-by-side with the plastic ones.