Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival marks the  end of Chinese New Year.  Lantern Festivals are hosted at various memorials and temples around Taipei.  We went to one festial at the memorial for Taiwan's founding father, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.  

Here is a little Chinese History lesson courtesy of Wikipedia: 

 Sun Yat-Sen is considered to be the father of the Democratic movement in China directly after the fall of the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of the 20th century.  He actually became a Christian while studying in Hong Kong and earned a Doctorate of Medicine at a Christian missionary-based medical school before returning to mainland China to promote the cause of democracy.  He died of cancer before World War II and during Japanese occupation of China.  His death is believed to have caused a split in his democratic party into two factions- the Kuomingtang who maintained the democratic principles although their methods for carrying it out may have been contrary to Dr. Sen's beliefs in human rights.  The other group became the current ruling Communisty party.  This split actually caused civil war in mainland China after the Japanese retreat.  Ultimately the communists won out.  Interesting, huh?  What could have happened if he lived longer?

Anyways, here are a few pics from the Lantern Festival at Sun Yat-Sen's memorial.

The lanterns below are "Spongebob becomes a tiger and Patrick becomes a Cow" to commemorate the exit of the year of the Cow and the entrance of the year of the Tiger.  I'm not sure the significance of Spongebob other than he is quite popular over here.

Always up to promote a good cause- Here is Taipei 101 as seen from the lantern festival encouraging people to "End Polio."   Last I checked, polio wasn't a problem in Taiwan.  The week before, the lights spelled out "Taiwan Up."  Some things just don't translate.