Mid-Autumn

Little fires every year.

What I remember is that the lanterns would always catch fire.

Crepe-paper, box accordion-shaped lanterns, in pinks, reds and oranges, with painted details of flowers and fish. They came packed flat, having been stored long enough in that form that they never quite stretched out again as intended. Mom affixed birthday candles to the stiff cardboard base inside, and handed one each to my sister and me. We'd wait until we were outside in the driveway to light them, in the hopes that they would remain lit for as long as possible in the brisk dusk of fall night.

In place of a proper handle, Mom wrapped the thin wire top of the lantern around a long chopstick for us to hold, but the smooth surface would cause the wire to slide around. In my kid hands, in my sister's even younger hands, the flames wobbled precariously inside the delicate paper cage.

The lanterns always caught fire. To me, this was an integral part of the ritual. Lighting a lantern in order to set it ablaze.

When the inevitable happened, we'd quickly remove the chopstick and let the rest of the lantern burn out, resting safely atop the concrete driveway of our home. They crumpled, charred, disappeared into almost nothing but the small burnt remnants of wire and wax and wick.

I wonder how far away we were from the next nearest lantern, its light never reaching us, ours neither to them. Our little cul-de-sac in the middle of Malibu, a community where at times we could count the number of Asian families on a single hand, to say the least of Taiwanese families.

The flames flickered out within a few minutes, and yet it seemed important to light them anyways. Something different, something fun and even a little bit dangerous, to mark the passage of another season.