Lanterns across Asia: one light, many meanings

Few objects travel across East and Southeast Asia as easily as the lantern. It is cheap, light and portable, and yet in each place it seems to say something slightly different.

Hội An: light as identity

In Vietnam, the lantern belongs first to childhood. At Mid-Autumn, children carry star-shaped and animal-shaped lanterns through the streets. In Hội An, the lantern has become the face of a whole town. Silk lanterns in every colour hang from shopfronts and trees, and the old town is famous for evenings when lanterns light the river.

By day the same lanterns are quieter, hanging against old yellow walls, waiting for evening.

Kaohsiung: light as celebration

In Taiwan, red lanterns are tied to temples and to the Lunar New Year. Red is the colour of luck and protection, and lanterns strung in long rows turn an ordinary space into a festive one. The frame below shows that effect clearly: repetition does the work, the way it does with torii gates.

Japan: light as an invitation

In Japan, a red paper lantern hanging outside a door often marks an izakaya, a casual place to eat and drink after work. The lantern here is not ceremonial at all. It says: we are open, come in, it will not be expensive.

At night, whole alleys of these small bars glow together, and the lantern becomes the main light source of the street.

Why lanterns photograph so well

From a photographer's point of view, a lantern is a gift. It is a light source that is also a subject. It glows without dazzling, it colours the faces near it, and it gives a frame warmth even when the rest of the scene is dark.

I like that each place reads the same object differently: identity in Hội An, celebration in Taiwan, an invitation to come in for a drink in Japan. It is a small reminder that objects do not carry meaning by themselves. People and places give it to them.

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Photos: thuanvo, aiworldexplore, 4601460, yoonason23 on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.