They start to appear sometime in late April. Strung from the tops of lampposts and across Seoul’s city streets, colorful bits of pink and yellow paper fashioned into the shape of lanterns hint that something is afoot. The city seems to be getting ready for something — a party, maybe?

The concentration of the brightly colored lanterns around the city’s Buddhist temples hint that they may have something to do with the centuries-old religion that found its way to Korea via China from India. And that’s just what is happening. The cheery decorations herald the arrival of the annual Lotus Lantern Festival, which, along with the blossoming of the cherry trees, is one of the best things about spring in South Korea — that and, of course, the arrival of warmer weather.

Stretching over several days, the festival is really a huge party to commemorate the birth of the Buddha. Celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month by the lunar calendar, Buddha’s birthday was on May 26 last year, and for 2005, it falls on May 8. (For astrology buffs out there, this seems to indicate Buddha was a Gemini or Taurus, though it’s hard to say for sure.)

The lanterns are especially thick around the temple Jogye-sa, where most of the action takes place during the festival. Located in the Jongno district in northwestern Seoul, the temple is home to the Jogye Order, the largest sect of Buddhism in South Korea.

On a visit to Jogye-sa last May, in the days leading up to the festival, hundreds of rows of paper lanterns were already strung throughout the temple grounds, creating a multihued canopy that all but shut out the blue sky. I was so busy taking pictures of the pretty paper lanterns that I almost didn’t notice the Foreigners’ Information Center tucked away in a corner of the temple grounds.

In a spare, plain office with stacks of pamphlets and booklets printed in English, I met a friendly, young Korean woman, Man Kyung Jeon, eager to share the history of Buddhism in Korea, the background of Jogye-sa and, perhaps, practice her English.

Knowing something about Tibetan Buddhism, but very little about Korean Buddhism, I was happy to learn the following nuggets of information, as told by Ms. Jeon:

• Buddhism came to Korea from India through China 1,700 years ago.

Buddhist monks display rare joviality during the main parade.

• It was the state religion in Korea until the Joseon Dynasty took power (which ruled from 1392 to 1910) and installed Confucianism as the official state religion.

• Thereafter, Buddhist monks were not allowed in Seoul and temples were banned from within the city’s four main gates (leading Buddhist temples to be built in the mountains — a feature that makes temples in Korea so attractive now).

• In 1910, during the time of Japanese colonialism, Buddhist monks built Jogye-sa, the only Buddhist temple located within Seoul’s historic four gates.