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What is the origin and significance of the Mid-Autumn Festival?

The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching. Do you know the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival? I believe many people are not very clear about it. Below, I will introduce the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival to you. Let’s take a look at it if you are interested!

The origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the term "Mid-Autumn Festival", was first seen in the "Book of Rites" and "Book of Rites" Yue Ling said: "The moon of Mid-Autumn nourishes the elderly and promotes health. Rice porridge diet. ?But it didn’t say which day in August it was.

It was not until the Tang Dynasty that the Mid-Autumn Festival became a fixed festival. Legend has it that Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty dreamed of traveling to the Moon Palace and received the song of colorful clothes and feathers, and the custom of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival became popular among the people. It is generally believed that the Mid-Autumn Festival became popular in the Song Dynasty. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival had become a major traditional festival in China.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is not only a Chinese festival. Influenced by Chinese culture, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also a traditional festival in Southeast Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea.

The meaning of the Mid-Autumn Festival is to eat mooncakes to show "reunion". Moon cakes, also called Hu cakes, palace cakes, moon cakes, harvest cakes, reunion cakes, etc., were offerings to worship the moon god during the Mid-Autumn Festival in ancient times. According to legend, in ancient my country, emperors had the ritual system of worshiping the sun in spring and the moon in autumn. Among the people, during the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, there is also the custom of worshiping or offering sacrifices to the moon. "The moon is round in August and fifteenth, and the Mid-Autumn moon cakes are fragrant and sweet." This famous proverb tells the custom of urban and rural people eating moon cakes on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Moon cakes were originally used as sacrifices to the moon god. Later, people gradually regarded moon viewing and tasting moon cakes as a symbol of family reunion during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Gradually, moon cakes became a must-have gift for the festival.

Moon cakes, as a symbol of family reunion, have gradually become a must-have gift during the festival. Mooncakes are round, and the dynasty that was given the meaning of reunion was the Ming Dynasty. Liu Tong's "Scenery of the Imperial Capital" said: "When offering sacrifices to the moon on August 15th, the fruit cakes must be round." Tian Rucheng's "History of Touring the West Lake" said: "August 15th is called the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the people also use moon cakes to celebrate reunion, which means reunion." Shen Bang also described the grand occasion of making mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival in Beijing in the Ming Dynasty in "Miscellaneous Notes of Wanshu": The residents all made mooncakes for each other, varying in size, and called them mooncakes. In the market, fruit is used as filling, and the name is strange. One cake is worth hundreds of dollars.

Mid-Autumn Festival delicacy Reunion Steamed Bun

In Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, every local family makes steamed buns during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the whole family eats one steamed bun, which is called "Reunion Steamed Bun". The steamed bun has two layers: top and bottom, with sesame seeds in the middle. A large bowl is used to make a circle on the top of the steamed bun, which symbolizes the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. A stone is carved in the circle, and a little monkey eating a peach stands on it. After the steamed buns are cooked in the pot, they are cut into fang shapes. Each person in the family has one tooth. If the family goes out for a short time, one tooth is left behind. When a girl gets married, her parents' family will send steamed buns to her door to show that the whole family will never forget the reunion.

獍粑

Eating glutinous rice cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period more than 2,000 years ago. It is a traditional custom that has been passed down to this day in memory of Wu Zixu, the general of Chu State. People usually regard the Mid-Autumn Festival as a lunar festival second only to the Spring Festival, and it is known as the "Little New Year". Before dawn on the Mid-Autumn Festival, the women at home got up early and started to work, pouring the cleaned glutinous rice into wooden steamers to steam. After the glutinous rice is steamed, the male head of the family will carry the wooden steamer to the courtyard dam, pour the fragrant glutinous rice into the stone steamer nest, and a group of two people will start pounding it with a batter or wooden pestle. The children happily gathered around the Shizui Nest to watch the adults pounding glutinous rice with a pull and a pestle, looking forward to eating sweet glutinous rice cakes.

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