Skip to main content

Lotus Lantern Festival '15 - Seoul


Over this last weekend the annual Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival was held in honour of Buddha's birth. It's typically held the weekend before his birthday which is May 25th so this year it was celebrated between May 15th - 17th.


Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival continues the tradition of making and hanging lanterns as symbolic offerings of light, wisdom and compassion in the Buddhist traditions. About one-quarter of Koreans are Buddhists, and the Jogye Order is Korea’s largest Buddhist sect. As the festival hosts, they  start the annual celebration at Seoul Bongeunsa temple near the COEX Conference and Exhibition Center, with an exhibition of traditional lanterns made from Korea’s traditional paper Hanji.


Since it's inception in 2009 there have been some amazing displays of lanterns made by both Korean and International artists along the famous Cheonggyecheon Stream in downtown Seoul, Jogyesa Temple, Bongeunsa Temple, and the Dongguk University areas. During the festival hundreds of lanterns each with a unique design and story were lit along the waterway, at the temples and along the streets.

As I've been around the streets and alleyways of Seoul over the last few weeks I've seen the lavish preparations being put in place by the various temples, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and other organisers for this massive event. Lanterns  lined the city streets and were lit up at night giving this city of around 25.6 million people, a fun and festive atmosphere in anticipation of the up coming lantern festival.


The centre of the activities over the weekend were at the Seoul Jogyesa temple, the main temple of Korea’s largest Buddhist sect. During the Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival, the tightly packed compound felt intimate due to the thousands of colorful lanterns which were strung from roof eaves and trees and it felt like they'd created a false ceiling. 


The focal point of the Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival was the Lotus Lantern Parade. It was  very popular with the city’s Korean residents and the parade was also a favorite event for the city’s expat community and tourists as well. At dusk the street revelers gathered for what is said to be Seoul’s largest annual street procession. 
'From Dongguk University Station to Dongdaemun and Jogyesa temple, Seoul’s night sky becomes lit not by office towers, but by thousands of lanterns made in the shapes of dragons, pagodas, phoenixes, and, of course, lotuses. At about 9:30 pm, everything culminates with the Daedong Celebration. Meaning “being together,” the final event of singing and dancing at the Jonggak intersection usually reaches its finale at about 11 pm, when revelers are showered by pink lotus petals.' - Discovering Korea website


The event was colourful, fun filled, and a great cultural  experience. It lasted for 3 days in the middle of this  huge, bustling city and all of the lanterns were made from Hanji paper !!!! 
During the day the lanterns looked amazing but at night they came to life.

  


Here's a short video taken a few years ago by Evan & Rachel. Unfortunately I ran out of memory on my camera and couldn't take video but I hope the few photos I've been able to post give you an idea of this amazing event.

 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways.  In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book.  Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out.                         The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most  important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings.  None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit.  It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist.                         For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been  around for about three thousand years.  The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!!  The store is based in Daejon, Korea.   HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation  business and they have a factory in Junju.  They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products.   I ordered some papers from them recently  to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with  the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing.   They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa