By TraNews Reporter
TAICHUNG CITY, Taiwan
(TraNews) – January 15 on lunar calendar is Lantern Festival, and people sometimes call it “small new year”. There are different celebrations and fun events all over Taiwan. Two of the most important things to do on the special holiday are having tangyuan and guessing riddles.

The origin of guessing riddles was from Warring States Period of China. At that period of time, people celebrated the holiday all night long and riddles were written on lanterns for people to guess. Afterwards, the custom has passed down for centuries until now.

As for the origin of having tangyuan, people started to have tangyuan since Sung Dynasty of China. Tangyuan had different names in that period of time and some merchants called the lucky food “gold ingot”. Generally speaking, people in north call it yuanxiao and whereas tangyuan in south.