More for nostalgia and little for curiosity were my reasons for going to the Chinese Lantern Festival down by Ontario place on Civic Holiday Monday. As a child in Singapore, the Lantern festival was one of my favourite times of the year. My sister and I received lanterns usually made from coloured plastic stretched across a wire frame. She was quite young at the time and had a battery lit bulb placed in a plastic swan. I got a candle held in the centre of the wire frame of my goldfish. It was quite magical walking about in the parks at night in Singapore carrying the lantern communing with other families carrying similarly lit objects.
The festival at Ontario Place is a different affair. For one thing, the lanterns are HUGE. Actually, they are more like mini temples, theatre stages, forests and mechanical marvels. They ranged from the traditional dragon on the waters float, to the 12 Chinese zodiac figures wandering in a forest, chinese lions in pursuit of a giant fire ball to the more modern floats which consisted of the Toronto Skyline including the CN tower. I was most amazed by the constructions of elephants, dragons, and a phoenix made of china. There was lots of dim sum dishes to be sampled and a lion dance at the end. So not quite what I envisioned Lantern Festival to be but a satisfying remembrance of things past.
