It is said that the custom of eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival originated in Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong. At that time, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, crusaded against Turks in the north, and finally won on August 15 of that year. Soldiers who struggled for several years were finally reunited with their families and homeland. On the occasion of national celebration, a Tibetan businessman who had trade with the Tang Dynasty presented a kind of bread with a depression. Its decoration is gorgeous and its taste is sweet. Emperor Taizong was overjoyed after eating, pointing to the bright moon hanging in the sky and saying, "We should invite toads (that is, the moon) with Hu cakes." Therefore, there will be a festival to eat moon cakes and celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

On the other hand, the custom of eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival originated in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties. It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang led the Han people to resist the tyranny of the Yuan Dynasty, agreed to the uprising on August 15th, and put a note in the moon cake to convey the news: August 15th uprising. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang finally overthrew the Yuan Dynasty and became the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. The custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival spread among the people. Nowadays, moon cakes are also given to relatives and friends as gifts to connect feelings.

Moon cakes are essential food for Mid-Autumn Festival. Moon cakes are round and have the meaning of reunion. The full moon symbolizes people's good wishes for family reunion, and it is also a symbol that people who are far away from home miss their hometown and relatives. On this day, people will worship the moon with moon cakes and melons, hoping for a bumper harvest, happiness and reunion. Moon cakes have a long history in China. As early as the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, there was a kind of "Taishi cake" in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to commemorate Taishi Wenzhong, who was the "ancestor" of China moon cakes. Later, in the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian went to the Western Ocean and introduced sesame seeds and walnuts, which added auxiliary materials for making moon cakes. At this time, a round cake filled with walnuts appeared, which was called "Hu cake".

In the Tang Dynasty, people had bakers engaged in production, and pastry shops began to appear in Chang 'an, the capital. It is said that one Mid-Autumn Festival, when Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei enjoyed the moon and ate Hu Bing, Tang Xuanzong thought the name Hu Bing was not pleasant to listen to. Yang Guifei looked up at the bright moon and blurted out "moon cake". The name of "moon cake" gradually spread among the people. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the royal Mid-Autumn Festival at that time liked to eat a kind of "palace cake", commonly known as "small cake" and "moon group". Su Dongpo has a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, crisp and pleasing."

It was not until the Ming Dynasty that eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival gradually spread among the people. At that time, ingenious bakers often printed fairy tales about the moon, such as the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, on moon cakes, making them popular among the people. By the Qing Dynasty, the technology of making moon cakes had been greatly improved, and there were more and more varieties. With people's increasingly rich experience in making moon cakes, the types of moon cakes are constantly emerging in the market, and the technology is becoming more and more exquisite.

Play with lanterns

There are many games in Mid-Autumn Festival, the first is playing lanterns. Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the three major Lantern Festival in China, so we should play with lanterns in festivals. Of course, the Mid-Autumn Festival does not have such a large lantern festival, and playing with lanterns is mainly between families and children.

As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, it was recorded in Old Wulin that the Mid-Autumn Festival was a custom, and there was an activity of "putting a small red light into the river to drift and play". Lantern playing in Mid-Autumn Festival is mostly concentrated in the south. For example, the autumn festival in Foshan mentioned earlier has all kinds of colorful lights: sesame lights, eggshell lights, wood shavings lights, straw lights, fish scales lights, chaff lights, melon seeds lights, birds, animals, flowers and trees lights, which are amazing.

In Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other places, Mid-Autumn Festival activities will be held on Mid-Autumn Festival night, and trees will be erected, which means that lanterns will be erected high. With the help of their parents, children make rabbit lanterns, carambola lanterns or square lanterns out of bamboo paper, hang them horizontally on short poles and then stand on high poles. They are high-tech and colorful, adding another scenery to the Mid-Autumn Festival. Children often compete with each other to see who stands tall, much taller and has the most exquisite lighting. In addition, there are sky lanterns, that is, Kongming lanterns, which are made of paper and tied into large lanterns. Burning candles under the lamp, the hot air rises, making the lamp fly in the air, making people laugh and chase. In addition, there are children carrying all kinds of lanterns to enjoy in the lower reaches of the moon.

In Nanning, Guangxi, in addition to all kinds of lanterns tied with paper and bamboo for children to play with, there are also simple grapefruit lanterns, pumpkin lanterns and orange lanterns. The so-called grapefruit lamp is to empty the grapefruit, carve a simple pattern, put on a rope and light a candle inside, which is very elegant. Pumpkin lanterns and orange lanterns are also made by removing pulp. Although simple, it is easy to make and very popular. Some children also put grapefruit lights into the pool water to play games.

There is a simple autumn lantern in Guangxi, which is made of six bamboo sticks, pasted with white gauze paper and inserted with candles. Hanging on the platform for offering sacrifices to the moon or for children to play with.

Now, in many areas of Guangxi and Guangdong, the Lantern Festival is arranged on the Mid-Autumn Festival night, large modern lanterns illuminated by electric lights are made, and new lanterns made of various plastics are used for children to play, but the simplicity of the old lanterns is gone.

In addition, the game of burning tile lamp (or burning flower tower, burning tile tower and burning fan tower) is widely circulated in the south, and it is circulated in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places. For example, Volume 5 of China Folk Customs: "On the Mid-Autumn Festival night in Jiangxi, children usually pick up tiles in the wild and pile them into round towers with holes. At dusk, it is burned in the firewood tower under the bright moon. As soon as the tiles burned red, kerosene was poured on the fire, and suddenly the fields were red and bright as day. It was not until late at night, when no one was watching, that it began to pour interest. This is the famous tile-burning lamp. " The tile-burning tower in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province is also a hollow tower made of bricks, which is filled with branches and burned to ashes. At the same time, it also burns smoke piles, that is, piles of grass and firewood burned after the end of Yue Bai. The fan-burning pagoda in the border area of Guangxi is similar to this kind of activity, but the folklore is to commemorate the heroic battle of Liu Yongfu, a famous anti-French fighter in Qing Dynasty, and burn the ghost (French invader) who escaped into the pagoda to death, which is quite patriotic. There is also a "tower burning boy" activity in Jinjiang, Fujian.

Legend has it that this custom is related to the righteous act of resisting the Yuan soldiers. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, the Han people were subjected to bloody rule, so the Han people made unyielding resistance, held meetings in various places to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and lit trumpets on the top floor of the pagoda. Similar to the fire on the platform at the top of the mountain, although this resistance was suppressed, the custom of burning pagodas remained. This legend is similar to the legend of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival.