How does Indonesia mark Lantern Festival?
Cap Go Meh
- Local date
- February 20, 2027
- When is it?
- The 15th day of the first lunar month (the fifteenth night counted from Imlek)
Indonesia's fifteenth night is called Cap Go Meh — the Hokkien for "fifteenth evening", meaning the fifteenth night after Lunar New Year. The largest is in Singkawang, West Kalimantan, and its centre is not the lantern but the Tatung: people held to be possessed by ancestral spirits, carried through the streets and pierced with blades without bleeding. It is entered, together with the Tatung, on the national register of intangible cultural heritage. Read this cell beside Taiwan's and China's and the point is clear: the same fifteenth night, lanterns and riddles on one side, procession and possession on the other.
What is this topic?
The same lunar date is three different scenes in Taiwan alone — eating tangyuan and walking through a lantern display, releasing sky lanterns in Pingxi, or standing inside a wall of exploding fireworks in Yanshui — while in mainland China it is a working day, not one of the days off for all citizens. This page compares ritual intensity and civic status under one calendar date.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.