When the whole sky lights up, no one says a word

The instant the main lantern lights up, the whole family makes no sound, only looks up. Designed after that year's zodiac animal, sometimes over ten metres tall, when it slowly turns and glows even the noisiest child goes quiet. The exhibition lantern zones all around glow in every way — some traditional festival lanterns, cotton paper pasted over to give off a warm yellow; some LED installations, cold light blinking. Near and far run together into one sheet, until there is no telling where the lanterns end and the sky begins.

Taiwan's Lantern Festival is held each year at Yuanxiao — the fifteenth of the first lunar month, the last night of the whole New Year. Yuanxiao has always been the festival of lighting lamps; once it was carrying lanterns, viewing displays, guessing lantern riddles; later it grew into a national event, a different host city each year, the main lantern a different zodiac each year, yet the thing underneath never changed: as a year nears its end, everyone lights lamps together and keeps the light one night longer.

It is best to arrive by dusk, while a little afterglow remains; those dozen minutes when lantern light and twilight overlap are the loveliest — day and night briefly laid one over the other. The outer design-lantern sets are often more interesting than the main lantern, and every year a few works make one stand and not want to leave. The family wanders them one set at a time, the children running ahead, then afraid of getting lost, turning back every few steps to look.

A child holds a small zodiac lantern, handed out at the entrance, plastic, blinking, laughably plain beside those great installations; yet he treasures it utterly, carrying it everywhere. Beside us a grandfather leads an even smaller granddaughter, an identical one in her hand too — the two children's lanterns bobbing through the crowd, and in that moment it becomes clear: however grand the main lantern, in the end it is all for this small light, the kind carried in a hand.

On the night wind is the warm smell of cotton paper faintly scorching, mixed with sugar-roasted chestnuts drifting from the stalls. The child, tired of running, comes back to the grown-ups, holding the blinking little lantern high for everyone to see. The festival's clamour is still all around, yet the family gathered about that one small light is, instead, in a quieter place.

By the time we left it was fully dark, the festival's light still glowing behind us. We walked a stretch, the child looked back once, the grown-ups looked back once, and then we decided not to look back again — some scenes only become whole once one has walked away, left behind, left in the moment you are willing to let them stay. I think, bringing a family here, what you remember in the end will be that least remarkable lantern in a child's hand.