During the Lantern Festival, riddles are commonly written on paper lanterns for children and other visitors to solve.
This custom is known as guessing or solving “lantern riddles.” A riddle may be pasted onto a lantern, displayed beside it, or written on a strip of paper. Participants try to work out the answer and may submit it to the lantern’s owner or host.
The tradition is associated especially with the Song dynasty, when lantern-riddle games became popular. The subjects can range from animals, plants, and everyday objects to Chinese characters, proverbs, poetry, and classical stories. Solving them can involve wordplay and homophones, which are especially rich in Chinese.
The Lantern Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar and traditionally concludes the New Year season. Lantern displays, dragon dances, lion dances, and sweet rice dumplings called tangyuan are also associated with the celebration. The riddles are not prayers or recipes: they are a participatory word game tied to the lantern display.