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Admiring festive lanterns on stamps

chinaculture.org | Updated: 2010-02-26 15:18

This lantern signifies the ideas of light and having a baby born on the other side of the straits of Taiwan. Lighting the lantern means that you’re lighting your future. A woman who wants to give birth to a boy always walks under the lantern designed during Lantern Festival, because the pronunciation of the word "light" is similar to the pronunciation of "boy" in the South-Min Dialect.

In order to cooperate with Taipei International Tradition Craft Exhibition, Taiwan Post issued a set of "China traditional craft" stamps (four in a set) on January 16th, 1993. The "Lantern" pattern shows the craftsman painting the colored lanterns.

On February 26 th 2002, Taiwan Post issued a set of stamps called "Taiwan Traditional Activities Collection (first part)" (four in a set). The first, "Fly a Kong-Ming-Lantern," shows the blessing ceremony in the remote Pingxi of Taiwan Island on January 15th. Aside from the stamps with the theme of colored lanterns, many other subjects of Chinese stamps often increase the pattern effect of the decorative lantern. On October 8th 1949, the first commemorative collection of stamps, "Celebrate the First Plenary Session of CPPCC," (four in a set) was issued. A very large lantern sticks out, flying in the rostrum of Tiananmen with a tag painted with the letters "CPPCC."

To commemorate the program of "Taiwan Residents Can Come to the Mainland to Visit Relatives," the original Chinese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued a commemorative stamped postcard, entitled JP13: "Welcome Taiwan Residents to the mainland to Visit Relatives (or as tourists)" on February 10th, 1988. The pattern is comprised of a dragon lantern, narcissus and Tangyuan, and the implied meaning is to express familial love, friendship and the wish for reunion.

 
Admiring festive lanterns on stamps

Stamp “The Year of Ding Chou” 

On January 5th, 1997, the main pattern on the second stamp of 1997-1T "The Year of Ding Chou" was a festive lantern imprinted with the word "niu" which means ox in Chinese.

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