It's really hard to pinpoint what it is that makes a lantern so special. Faces glow in the light and there seems to be some hidden delight and gentleness in carrying a lantern. I know that this is true for Seoul, Korea, because every year there are many small local parades of lanterns to celebrate the Buddha's Birthday in May and people come in droves to see the lanterns and many more than you would expect come to carry a lantern around the neighborhood. It seems such a simple activity and yet people of all ages love it.

In Korea, lanterns are a major focus of one of the most important yearly events called Buddha's Birthday. Celebrated on the 8th day of the 4th lunar month every year, Koreans believe that that is the day the Buddha Sakyamuni was born in northeastern India. (The Buddhist year is calculated from the Buddha's death which was 2500 years ago in 1956.) The Buddha was a man who spent his life teaching anyone who was interested in trying to understand reality. He taught people how to develop from a state of ignorance into true wisdom, symbolized by lotus lanterns.

Unique to Korea, lotus lanterns consist of the symbols of the lotus flower and a candle. The lotus, a common symbol in Buddhism, represents the process of shedding ignorance (darkness, growing towards the light from the mud) to attain wisdom (light, the opening of the flower in the sunlight).
Making lanterns in the shape of lotuses renacts the aspiration of everyone for wisdom. The candle inside symbolizes the attainment of wisdom. The occurrence of these lanterns is first recorded in 551 in the Shilla Kingdom and their popularity reached a climax in the Koryo Dynasty when there were parades of up to 10,000 lanterns. King T'aejo (r. 918-943) mentions in his Ten Injunctions -- a summing up of the founder of the Koryo Dynasty's political philosophy and religious belief -- that "the hanging and parading of lotus lanterns is serving the Buddha." (Injunction No. 6 adapted.) As at Hallowe'en in the USA or Guy Fawkes in the UK, children used to carry the materials for the lantern-to-be from house to house collecting money, candies or food.

Lotus lanterns have to be seen to be believed. The beauty of them hanging and casting a mystic light filtered through pink, vermillion, yellow or cyclamen into the dark night is breath-taking. Maybe it is the beauty, maybe it is the spellbinding atmosphere that causes people to be unable to imagine how these lanterns are made. Lotus Lantern International Buddhist Center made the biggest lotus lantern in the world which went into the 1989 Guinness Book of World Records, and therefore they consider themselves expert in the art. Here is the process.

Traditionally, the frames were made of bamboo. The strips of bamboo were molded into hexagonal shapes and the joints secured. A long thin piece of bamboo made the handle. Nowadays, wire is used and the frames come ready made. For the petals, light-weight paper was dyed, cut into the desired size of rectangles and piled in stacks of 20 or 30 pieces. Then each stack was dampened and strapped tightly to a bottle. The string securing it to the bottle was wound round and round with a little space between each turn. A piece of wooden board with a hole the size of the circum-ference of the bottle (looking a little like a toilet seat) was placed over the neck of the bottle and then pressed down with enormous power forcing the string and paper to the bottom of the bottle and creating the pleats of the petals. After a couple of minutes, the string is carefully unwound and the paper cautiously removed and set aside for drying on the warm, heated floor -- Korean houses and apartments have heated floors, a traditional luxury. These days the petals come ready made, too!
Once each stack of pleated, curved paper is dry, it is ready for separating and making into petals. Each piece of paper is gently held and the tip is twisted with a little paste to form a point.
Now, back to the frame. Over the frame, white paper is pasted. When the frame and the petals are dry, then the lantern is ready to be assembled. Paste is applied to about two or three centimeters of the base (away from the point) of the petal and then it is stuck at the upper end of the lantern with the point just going over the edge of the frame. After that the petals are stuck all the way around in layers until the bottom of the lantern. There one to three layers of green petals are stuck, sometimes with the petals pointing downwards. Next the lantern is placed upside down to dry. When the time comes to use the lantern, a candle is placed inside and lit -- this is the magic.

If you happen to visit a temple on or around Buddha's Birthday, you will be surprised to see the lanterns hanging with pieces of paper with writing on them dangling from the bottom. These pieces of paper have the names of people on them. Anyone who wants to can "buy" a lantern and write anything he or she likes on it. A donation is given to the temple. Buddhists believe that the more we give, the more generous we are, the happier we are. The money given helps the temple for its expenses as well as helping for any of the numerous welfare projects that most temples have.

There are also ceremonies for marriages, births and special birthdays.
Childless couples may have a ceremony in the hope of bearing a child;
nervous students may chant for good exam results.