As the Lantern Festival approaches, supermarket staff members in Loudi City are preparing Tangyuan or Yuanxiao on site, attracting many customers. Tangyuan is a kind of round and sweet dumpling made of glutinous rice flour. The photo, taken on February 21, shows a staff member making Tangyuan at a Walmart store in Louxing District, Loudi City. (Photo/Wu Yonghua)
The Lantern Festival falls on February 24 this year, which is the fifteenth day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar and also marks the first full moon of the year. The festival marks the end of the Spring Festival celebrations.

Yuanxiao is a must-eat festival delicacy during Latern Festival. It's made of glutious rice, wrapped in bean paste, sesame, hawthorn and other fillings. It can be boiled, fried and steamed. With the soft and sweet taste, Yuanxiao is deeply loved by everyone. In southern and northern China, there are also different cooking methods for Yuanxiao. The northerners roll the "Yuanxiao" first by kneading the stuffing into uniform small balls, placing them in a basket covered with dried glutious rice flour and shaking them constantly, adding water time to time during this process to make the stuffing stick with more and more glutinous rice flour until the size is right. However in southern China, it's called Tangyuan, people mix glutinous rice flour with water to form glutinous rice balls, and then wrap the filling.

As the Lantern Festival approaches, supermarket staff members in Loudi City are preparing Tangyuan or Yuanxiao on site, attracting many customers. (Photo/Wu Yonghua)

As the Lantern Festival approaches, supermarket staff members in Loudi City are preparing Tangyuan or Yuanxiao on site, attracting many customers. Tangyuan is a kind of round and sweet dumpling made of glutinous rice flour. The photo, taken on February 21, shows a staff member making tangyuan at a Walmart store in Louxing District, Loudi City. (Photo/Wu Yonghua)

责编：田梦瑶

一审：田梦瑶

二审：秦慧英

三审：黄晓辉

来源：湖南省政府网