The first idea of this legend is that the fires god will burn the capital 15 days after the new lunar calendar. I put some pics about this days here in Chinese New Year
And someone in the capital who obligate people to go out this night with fire light and to put in each doors and windows red light. This will the fires god will think that the city was burning.
In the most popular version they said that was the imperial advisor who help a waitress to go out for one night to see her own family.
With my co-worker and some Spanish friends we went to the Yuyuan Garden called also Yu garden to see the decoration.
In any case and as always wikipedia is better than me to explain this things. You could find it in french here and here in english I spoken a bit with some Chinese people and they told me that in Shanghai the tradition is a quite differente and i think normal because we are in a big city. But this tradition is more importante outside Shanghai.
For the night i have some tendance to use my Canon 450D and the original objectif because i have the stabilisator :P.


Inside the sky

Passage of the first lantern

Smiling lantern

Happiness in the lantern festival

Locked in the corner

Red row light

Lantern wall

Beef for this year

Buying his own lantern

Looking upside

Some food ...

Preparing the food