For the Lantern Festival, make your own riddles and tong jyun

Difficulty: Explorer (Level 1)

The Lantern Festival is on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. In Hong Kong, it is called Jyun Siu Zit. This festival goes back 2,000 years. On this day, monks would light up lanterns to honour the Buddha.

The Lantern Festival is important in Chinese culture. It is about happiness and peace. People display lanterns in different shapes and colours. They solve riddles written on strips under the lanterns. Celebrations also have lion and dragon dances, parades and fireworks.

People also gather to eat sweet rice balls (tong jyun). These are filled with sesame paste, peanuts or red bean paste. Their round shape represents being together with family. This is the perfect way to end the Lunar New Year celebrations.

Lantern riddle game

Materials

• index cards (or use recycled paper by cutting it into strips)

• coloured markers

Instructions

1. On each card, write down one riddle. You can come up with your own or find some online. Here are a few you can try:

• What question can you never answer “yes” to? (Are you asleep?)

• What holds water even though it has many holes? (A sponge)

• It works hard every day, counting numbers from morning to night. But it never gets past 12. What is it? (A clock)

2. Fold the cards to hide the riddles and mix them up.

3. Bring your riddles to your family, and see if they can guess the answers!

Sweet rice balls (tong jyun) recipe

Black sesame is a common filling for these rice balls. Photo: Shutterstock

Ingredients

• 1 cup of glutinous rice flour

• ½ cup of warm water

• filling of your choice (you can buy pre-made black sesame paste, red bean paste, or peanut butter)

• 2 teaspoons (or 2 pieces) of brown sugar

Instructions

1. Mix glutinous rice flour with warm water to form a soft and smooth dough.

2. Divide the dough into 12 balls. Flatten each ball, and place a small amount of filling in the centre of each one.

3. Pinch the edges to form round balls.

4. Boil water in a pot, and gently drop the rice balls in. Add the brown sugar pieces.

5. Cook the balls for four to six minutes or until they float to the surface. Stir to make sure they don’t stick.

6. Scoop the cooked rice balls from the pot with some of the brown sugar mixture. Serve immediately.