Wang Xiaowen, an inheritor of the techniques used to make Suzhou-style lanterns, and his team joined the design for the   Mid-Autumn Lantern Fair, as they have done for years.

On display are three main landscape lighting sets and other lighting sets composed of about 1,000 lanterns.

One of the most amazing scenes is the Lanyue Bridge decorated with hundreds of lanterns forming a pattern of a lotus flower on a ribbon surrounded by pendants in various formations. The installation, about 30 meters long and five meters high, symbolizes “a joy that never ends”.

The cuboid lanterns in the river bear poems that have been popular since the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The verses written in different calligraphic styles and the elegant traditional Chinese paintings of flowers are rendered especially beautiful by the warm light of the lanterns. The upright “l(fā)ong scroll” with the poem “Bringing in the Wine” by the celebrated Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai is amazing.

The sets of lanterns hanging on the roof of the about 100-meter-long Wistaria Corridor are well worth a visit, too. Each lantern bears the name of one of the 108 residential zones used to be divided by the road system in Chang’an, capital of the Tang Dynasty.

As night falls, the lanterns are lit. They and the ancient-style buildings shine more brilliantly in the other’s company. Strolling through the lanes and alleys, visitors may feel like they have travelled back in time to the ancient times.