Release your lantern

In celebration of the lunar new year, many people release a lantern into the night sky on the last day of festivities. Taiwan Data Stories made a fun interactive that lets you customize and release your own lantern.

One of the festival’s most iconic traditions is the release of sky lanterns (天燈), especially in Pingxi (平溪) in New Taipei City. As evening falls, thousands of glowing lanterns drift into the night sky, each inscribed with handwritten wishes for the year ahead. In the Year of the Horse, many lanterns feature the character 「馬」, reflecting the horse’s cultural associations with vitality, speed, endurance, and forward momentum.

I hope next year they turn this into a community interactive that shows everyone’s lanterns and hopes floating around.

A decade and a half ago, there used to be a site called 43 Things where people listed their goals in life. I made a now defunct interactive that showed goals floating by as people entered new items. It was calming to watch so much hope move across the screen.