Of course, this Sun Monkey, not the Journey to the West in the Sun Da Sheng, nor who has nothing to do, raised a monkey, it is just a face pinch a monkey.

But it's not just a monkey, it's a chicken, a rabbit, a snake, a bird, and other little animals made out of noodles, and it's a food offering to the moon.

There is a reason why the monkey was stolen from someone's house on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Old lifelong people say, who married a daughter-in-law is not pregnant, if you steal the August 15 of the Sun Monkey, you will certainly be pregnant with a big fat boy.

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is full in the sky, and the world is reunited. There is a Sun monkey child in the moon, which is said to bring happiness to the earth.

The face of the monkey, sitting on a plate disk. The two snakes are rolled along the edge of the disk to encircle the monkey. The monkey's legs, long outstretched, her legs, sitting on the rabbit, chickens and many other small animals. Roughly, they are the representatives of the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac. What are they doing? They are reporting to the Sun Monkey about how the year is going.

Anyone knows that on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, all the crops in the field, almost all the barn. With the year's new wheat, ground flour, steamed a few large moon cakes, to sacrifice the moon mother.

Liangzhou proverb: the sky master sky master greatly down, steamed buns on the cartwheel big. This cartwheel, refers to a wooden wheeled cart. The wheel can be really big. The diameter of the least, there is about one meter five it.

To make the moon cake into a diameter of one meter five or so, it is too big. Just steam a meter or so. That is also too big. But Liangzhou is a pastoral land since ancient times, rich in produce, coupled with the Liangzhou people mostly bold atmosphere, the steamed bun big and noisy, but the Liangzhou women's skills.

Liangzhou big moon cake, known far and wide. A few years ago, it was applied for intangible cultural heritage. When we were young, almost every family had a big wooden cage with a length and width of about one meter, and the mooncakes were steamed in this cage.

Launching the noodles is very laborious. In Liangzhou dialect, the daughter-in-law is knocked down, kneaded to the surface. Of course, the daughter-in-law can't be beaten casually. But the surface must be kneaded evenly, and the number of times it is issued, the more the better. That way, the steamed mooncakes will be delicious.

When I was at home, I didn't help my mother to knead and steam the mooncakes, but since I joined the workforce, I haven't made any mooncakes with my own hands. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have a good idea of what you want to do with the mooncake. So, the craft of steaming mooncakes, roughly in the hands of our generation, is about to be lost.

However, my elderly mother still insisted on steaming mooncakes every year, and also made sure to pinch those little desserts, of course, Sun Monkey is essential every year.

I've always wondered about this custom in my hometown. In the end, how it is inherited, no one can say. In the countryside, many unwritten rules, can not say. For example, when people repair the house, to be under the door pillar, pressure to add a few books. It is said that future generations will be a scholar. All kinds of things are inferior, but only high reading. In the minds of the people, reading, has always been the supreme thing. And steal a noodle pinch of sun monkeys, you can make your daughter-in-law pregnant, it is really a thing that can not be said.

The family that was stolen, must be prosperous. Before stealing, it is also a greeting to the earth. If really the next year on the birth of a big fat boy, is sure to go to others to thank. How to thank them? That is, in the second year of the Mid-Autumn Festival night, and then secretly send a face monkey over, the family saw, naturally, is also well aware of the, quietly retracted.

Listen to my mother, she and my father after marriage, long time can not get pregnant, is to go to the neighbor's house to steal the "Sun Monkey", only to have a pregnancy. The first thing I want to do is to get the money to pay for it.

My birthday is the 15th day of the 10th month of the lunar calendar, which is also a full moon day, and perhaps this is the main reason why I like every full moon night so much.

These beautiful customs, loaded with a place, people with people some kind of unspeakable care and help, but also the farming era, people living in a large village in one of the many joys it. (1308 words)