“We know Broward County is a very popular place for different festivals and attractions and also is centrally located,” explained George Zhao, the event’s producer.

“The Chinese Lantern Festival is a celebration of Chinese art and culture,” he said. “We have over 800 pieces of small and large lanterns. Basically it’s a walk-through exhibition of all kinds of … animals, flowers, plants of different continents. Along with the exhibits we also have martial arts performances featuring boxing of different animal styles like tiger boxing, mantis boxing, scorpion boxing and monkey boxing. We also have a shadow puppetry show done by four players the average age of 71. And along with that we also have dinosaur exhibitions and dinosaur rides for the kids. And we also have folk art demonstrations done by five folk artists doing embroidery, sugar painting, scissor cut and fabric art and Chinese knotting art. All those artists came from China just for this festival.”


The Chinese Lantern Festival was created by 20 artists from China working on-site here in South Florida for weeks creating more than 800 handcrafted lanterns. The Festival runs through Jan. 15 at Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill. (Rod Stafford Hagwood / SouthFlorida.com)

The Chinese Lantern Festival celebrates Chinese culture with lantern displays, Chinese food, hand-made gifts, kung fu demonstrations and live entertainment. The Festival runs through Jan. 15 at Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill. (Rod Stafford Hagwood / SouthFlorida.com)
This year the theme is “The Wild” for the art form that dates back to the Han Dynasty, the second imperial dynasty of China (206 BC to 220 AD).

 I watched them on the grounds actually putting these together and making them from different silks and satins and metals that are soldered together and along with porcelain plates. There’s animatronics that go with these, some make noises, others move. Everything is meticulously crafted. It’s a very different idea of design from what we are familiar with in the United States. The best way to do this is to take a moment, pause, and think about this is all handmade and it’s very much an attention to detail, very different type of culture than what I think our eye is familiar with when you get to the closer part of things.”

The Chinese Lantern Festival runs through Jan. 15 at Central Broward Regional Park, 3700 NW 11th Place, in Lauderhill. The exhibit is open from 5:30-1 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays. Tickets for adults are $21 online and $25 at the door; $12.50 for children and $15 at the door.