Ahead of Buddha's Birthday, the area around Yeongildae Beach in Pohang will be tinted with lanterns in five colors. It is the "2026 Citizens' Communication Culture Festival," hosted by the Pohang Buddhist Temple Association. Lanterns will be hung along the sand and the seaside walkway, and the paper shades will sway low in the wind coming off the sea.
A lantern takes a great deal of handwork. Bamboo ribs are bent into a frame, layers of hanji are pasted on, and then red and blue dyes are applied. The damp smell while the paste dries, the dry sound of paper brushing against paper, all of it is contained in a single lantern. When the wick catches fire, those layers come alive from within and the color spreads.
Yeongildae Beach is the sea where the people of Pohang walk each evening. At night the lights of the factories across the bay stretch out in a long line over the water. When lanterns are hung above them, the light of industry and the light of faith sway together on the same waves.
Hanging lanterns was originally a rite. Hanging lamps in a temple yard to light the darkness and to pray has continued for a long time. Moving that act into the lighting of a citizens' festival brings tension with it. The thinning of the language of ritual and the opening of the door to more people happen at the same time within one event.
The association's placing of "communication" in the event's name reads as a sign that it does not intend to gloss over that tension. It means they will try to make something on the beach that stops neither at a dharma assembly for believers alone nor at a night view that tourists pass through. The process by which an object of religion becomes an object of the local community usually begins this way, in the hands that make the lanterns together and hang them together.
The detailed program and admission fees remain to be announced. What has been confirmed is the place where it will be held and the host. The night sea wind in May can catch you out if you go by the daytime temperature, so it is better to bring an outer layer.
A lantern is something you have to look at for a long time to see. From a distance it is a mass of color, but standing close, the grain of the hanji, the brush marks and even the tremble in the hand of the person who made it come out. When the sun sets and you walk a few steps toward the water, you will see lanterns broken fine by the waves lighting up again on the surface.
Event information
Date: Around Buddha's Birthday (detailed schedule to be announced)
Venue: Around Yeongildae Beach, Pohang
Host: Pohang Buddhist Temple Association
