Appreciate the bright full moon
Mid-Autumn Festival, China has the custom of enjoying the moon since ancient times. There is a record of "autumn twilight and the moon" in the Book of Rites, that is, worshipping the moon god. In the Zhou Dynasty, every Mid-Autumn Festival night, activities to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon were held. Put a big incense table with seasonal fruits such as moon cakes, watermelons, apples, plums and grapes, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable. Watermelon must be cut into lotus shapes.
In the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was more popular to enjoy the moon. According to "Dream of Tokyo", "On the Mid-Autumn Festival night, your family is dressing up and the people are fighting for the restaurant to play the moon". On this day, all shops and restaurants in Beijing have to redecorate their facades, tie silk ornaments on archways and sell fresh fruits and refined foods. The night market is very lively. Many people visit The Upper Terrace, and some wealthy families enjoy the moon on their pavilions and arrange food or family dinners for their children to get together and talk about it together.
After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival remains the same. Many places have formed special customs such as burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting tower lanterns, putting sky lanterns, walking on the moon and dancing dragons.
Eat moon cakes
People in urban and rural areas of China have the custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival. As the saying goes, "August 15th is full, and Mid-Autumn moon cakes are sweet and fragrant". Moon cakes were originally used to worship the moon god. The word "moon cake" first appeared in Liang Lumeng written by Wu in the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, it was just a cake-shaped food like Ling Hua cake. Later, people gradually combined the Mid-Autumn Festival with tasting moon cakes, which symbolized family reunion.
Mooncakes were originally made at home, and the practice of mooncakes was recorded in Yuan Mei's Menu with the Garden in the Qing Dynasty. In modern times, there are workshops specializing in making moon cakes, and the production of moon cakes is becoming more and more elaborate, with exquisite fillings and beautiful appearance. There are also various exquisite designs printed on the outside of the moon cakes, such as "the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon", "jathyapple of the Galaxy" and "San Tan Yin Yue". It has become the wish of people all over the world to show people's reunion with a full moon, to show people's eternal life with a round moon cake, to pin their thoughts on their relatives in their hometown and to pray for a bumper harvest and happiness. Moon cakes are also used as gifts to send to relatives and friends and to connect feelings.
Other Mid-Autumn Festival customs
China has a vast territory, a large population and different customs. The Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in a variety of ways, with strong local characteristics.
In Pucheng, Fujian, women have to cross nanpu bridge to live longer during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In Jianning, hanging lanterns on Mid-Autumn Festival night is a good omen to ask the Moon Palace for children. People in Shanghang County celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and most of their children are invited to visit their parents when they are in Yue Bai. When Longyan people eat moon cakes, their parents will dig out round cakes with a diameter of two or three inches in the middle for their elders to eat, which means that they can't tell the secret to the younger generation. This custom stems from the legend that moon cakes contain the message of anti-meta-killing. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival in Kinmen, Yue Bai should worship God.
There is a custom of Mid-Autumn Festival Yue Bai in Chaoshan, Guangdong, which is mainly aimed at women and children. As the saying goes, "men are dissatisfied with the moon, and women don't sacrifice stoves." At night, when the bright moon rises, women set up a box in the yard and balcony to pray. Silver candles burned high, cigarettes filled the air, and the table was filled with good fruits and cakes as sacrifices. There is also the custom of eating taro in the Mid-Autumn Festival. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "River to mouth, taro to eat." August is the harvest season of taro, and farmers are used to using taro to worship their ancestors. Of course, this has something to do with farming, but there is also a popular folk legend: 1279, Mongolian nobles destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, established the Yuan Dynasty, and brutally ruled the Han people. Mafa defended Chaozhou against the Yuan Dynasty. After the city was broken, the people were slaughtered. In order not to forget the suffering of Hu people's rule, later generations used taro as a homonym with "Hu tou", which looked like a human head, in order to pay homage to their ancestors and pass it on from generation to generation, and it still exists today.
Burning towers on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival is also very popular in some places. The height of the tower varies from 1-3 meters, mostly made of broken tiles. The tower is also made of bricks, accounting for about 1/4 of the tower height, and then stacked with tiles, leaving a tower mouth at the top for fuel transportation. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, it will be lit and burned. The fuel is wood, bamboo, chaff, etc. When the fire is booming, rosin powder will be poured to cheer, which is very spectacular. There are also folk rules for burning stupas. Whoever burns the stupa to the whole house wins, and those who fail or collapse in the burning process lose. The winner will be presented with colorful flags, bonuses or prizes by the host. It is said that burning towers is also the origin of Han people's resistance to cruel rulers and Mid-Autumn Uprising at the end of Yuan Dynasty.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the folk customs in Jiangnan are also varied. Nanjing people love to eat moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival, so they must eat osmanthus duck, a famous Jinling dish. "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck" should be listed in Gui Xiang. It is fat but not greasy and delicious. After drinking, you must eat a small piece of sugar taro and pour cinnamon pulp on it. Beauty speaks for itself. "Guijiang" was named after Qu Yuan's "Helping the North to close its doors and drink Guijiang" in Chu Ci Shao Si Ming. Cinnamon pulp is a kind of sweet-scented osmanthus, which is picked around the Mid-Autumn Festival and pickled with sugar and sour plum. Jiangnan women are good at turning poems and songs into delicacies on the table. People in Nanjing enjoy the moon with their families, which is called "celebrating reunion", the group sitting and drinking is called "full moon", and the market trip is called "walking on the moon".
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were Moon Tower and Moon Bridge in Nanjing. In the Qing Dynasty, there was a moon-watching building under Lion Mountain, all of which were for people to enjoy the moon, and most people played the Moon Bridge. When the bright moon is high, people climb the Moon Tower, play the Moon Bridge and enjoy the Jade Rabbit together. "Xiyue Bridge" is located in the Confucius Temple on Qinhuai River, next to the mansion of Ma Xianglan, a famous prostitute. On this night, the literati gathered on the bridge to play the flute, sing songs and reminisce about Niuzhu playing with the moon and writing poems for the moon, so it was called playing with the moon bridge. After the death of the Ming Dynasty, it gradually declined. Later generations have a poem saying: "The romantic Southern Song Dynasty has been exhausted, leaving the west wind to be a long Banqiao, but remember to take the Yuren Bridge and teach the flute under the moon." Longbanqiao, the original Moon Bridge. In recent years, the Confucius Temple in Nanjing has been renovated, some pavilions and pavilions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties have been restored, and the rivers have been dredged. Until the Mid-Autumn Festival, you can enjoy playing with the moon together.
In Wuxi County, Jiangsu Province, incense is burned on Mid-Autumn Festival night. There are silks around the incense barrel, which depicts the scenery in the Moon Palace. There are incense sticks made of thread Kaori with paper kuixing and colorful flags on them. Shanghainese Mid-Autumn Festival Banquet with Sweet-scented osmanthus honey wine.
On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival in Ji 'an County, Jiangxi Province, every village burns crocks with straw. When the crock is red, put the vinegar in it. At this time, the whole village will smell a fragrance. During the Mid-Autumn Festival in Xincheng County, grass lanterns are hung from the evening of August 1 1 to August 17.