Yokohama: Lantern festival lights up Chinatown

By Futoshi Mori / Japan News Senior Writer

14:33 JST, October 28, 2022

The Chinese New Year Lanterns festival, an event that extravagantly illuminates Yokohama’s Chinatown with Chinese lanterns following an emphasis on the color red, will begin on Tuesday. Under the theme of “an eager welcome,” the entire Chinatown area will be lit up to celebrate the Chinese New Year from Tuesday to February.

A lighting ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday near the Zenrinmon Gate on Chinatown Boulevard, and the lights will be on from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. every night through February next year.

In Chinatown on Thursday, people were busy setting up lanterns, some shaped like dragons and fenghuang, a mythical phoenix-like bird from Chinese mythology.

Yokohama’s Chinatown stretches about 500 meters by 500 meters and is crowded with more than 200 Chinese restaurants. Since restrictions against the novel coronavirus were lifted, the area has been crowded with tourists.