Light fora new year

Chen Dongzhu, from Moshifang village in Zhuanghe, Dalian, keeps his family tradition of making animal lanterns. He and his wife earn about 80,000 yuan ($13,200) from the trade every year.

One booth owner, 31-year-old Yu Liang, says he has sold more than 1,000 lanterns a day over the past week.

"Every year, my parents and my maternal grandmother make about 20,000 animal lanterns. In the week before the Lantern Festival, they will all be sold," Yu says.

Many people retain the ability to produce the handicraft, he says, and every family that creates lanterns has their own designs. But without a doubt, the Chen family from the Moshifang village are the best, he says.

Chen Dongzhu, the elder brother of the Chen family, says his grandmother Tang Shu'e, who is now 94, learned the skill from her parents and handed it down to her daughter-in-law and her grandsons.

The family started to sell animal lanterns in the 1990s. About a decade ago, it could bring an annual income of 10,000 yuan. So Chen quit a more physical job and started to make a living making animal lanterns.

The family sells some lanterns to wholesalers and some directly to holiday revelers.

Every year, Chen and his wife begin making animal lanterns in October.

"As the lanterns are made of bean flour, they would not keep well," he explains.