KEY POINTS:
The Lantern Festival may have been a Chinese celebration since 206 BC,
but in the last 10 years one Cook Islands family in Auckland has turned it into their tradition.
When asked if he knew the festival was a Chinese and not a Polynesian
tradition, 10-year-old Denzel
Hagai, who has seen his family assemble and sell thousands of paper lanterns every year since he was born, said: "But it's my tradition too."
The Hagai family's love affair with the lantern started when mother Helen Hagai, a financial controller at Auckland City Council, volunteered to help at the first festival in 1999. "I put up my hands when the council asked for volunteers, but I had absolutely no clue to what the festival was all about, but it sounded interesting," Ms Hagai said.
Unsure about what to expect, and being a new mother to Denzel, Ms Hagai
roped in the help of her family - which included her mother, six siblings and their children.
"Together, we'd put the paper lanterns together and attach candles to them," Ms Hagai said.
"Not only did we enjoy the experience so much and learning about another
culture, but it got us closer together as a family."
Since then, the Hagai family - 15 of them, spanning three generations - have been volunteering to assemble and sell lanterns every year at the annual Chinese festival at Albert Park.
"Now, we no longer see the Lantern Festival as just a Chinese tradition, but a Hagai family tradition," Ms Hagai said.
"When people see us helping at the festival, they ask what a bunch of
Islanders are doing there, but I tell them that Auckland is now a
multicultural society, and everybody mixes."
Denzel has a favourite lantern - which was a gift from the festival organisers - that he takes to the festival every year, but it is his
dream to one day get a lantern designed specially for the family.
It is a Chinese belief that celestial spirits roam free in the light of the first full moon of the lunar calendar, and the lantern is used to
help them search for these spirits.
Today, the Lantern Festival is held each year in China, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Taiwan and more recently New Zealand, to mark the end of Chinese New Year.
It is also referred to as Chinese Valentine's Day because it gave girls and boys a rare chance to go out to mingle at night.
It will be held in Auckland from February 6 to 8 at Albert Park.