Fire! Fire! Fire!

The Hungry Ghost Month has come and gone, soon it will be mooncake festival again. Although I don't remember much of my childhood due to an accident, sometimes a familiar sight, sound, smell or touch can revive old memories still kept in the damaged parts of the brain.

In this case it was these lanterns. I am not talking about the modern plastic lanterns or the ones with Ben10, Transformers or Pokemon. It these traditional wire framed, translucent plastic and hand painted ones. These are quite rare nowadays, many kids prefer the battery operated types. One of the reasons maybe quite obvious or is it.... these old lanterns use a candle inside for a light source.

T-Rex Lantern

Anyway, I asked my mum about the time when I was a kid to piece together this story. I think I was around 7 or 8 years old. Back then, we never heard about the lanterns you guys and gals are used to. Some of the kids still carried a milk tin with a candle inside and the richer ones would have beautiful handmade paper lanterns. I wasn't rich but I had a lantern like the one in the picture.

I loved dragons and my lantern reflected my preference. I think my sister had a bunny and my cousin carried a rooster. Well, "rooster boy" is the focus of my story. We were having fun with our lanterns when my cousin's lantern's light went out. He grinned and took out a candle from his pocket to replace the one that was used. The genius forgot matches, so asked if could help by lighting his candle.

Anyone would tell you that if you try to put a lighted candle in a lantern would be tricky. As you can imagine, his candle touched the inside of the lantern and it started to burn!

"Fire..! Fire! Fire!" he shouted. But it was too late, in a matter of seconds his beautiful rooster became Kenny Rogers Roaster and was roasted reduced to a roasted bunch of twisted wire and ash. He cried and ran home. Pity him. I guess we all were bad to laugh at him. It was funny to see the lantern burn. (So... bad..)

Anyway, he proudly had another one the next day, so I guess he soon forgot about his fire incident.