The Mid-Autumn Lantern Fair opened at the old Xietang Street, SIP on Sept 16, and will last till Oct 6 to celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival which, reckoned on the fifteenth day of the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, will fall on Sept 29 this year.

Colorful lanterns are an essential part in Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, and are deemed as an important medium for emotional expression and cultural transmission.

This year’s Mid-Autumn Lantern Fair, themed “Nights of Flowers and Moonlight in Jiangnan”, incorporates Suzhou-style lanterns, poetry, calligraphy, painting, music and dancing which are typical of traditional aesthetics in Jiangnan (the region south of the Yangtze River).

Notably, Suzhou-style lanterns, a folk art on the national intangible cultural heritage list, were not only used to decorate the ancient-style buildings at the old Xietang Street, but also to form artistic installations.