The custom of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival is very popular in the Tang Dynasty, and many poets have poems about the moon in their masterpieces. By the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was more popular to enjoy the moon. On this day, "your family decorated the pavilions and the people competed for the restaurant to play with the moon". The activities of enjoying the moon in Yue Bai in the Ming and Qing Dynasties were more extensive, and many historic sites such as Yue Bai Altar, Moon-worshipping Pavilion and Moon-gazing Tower remain in various parts of China.
Literati and scholars have a special liking for moon viewing. They either go upstairs to get the moon or go boating to invite the moon, drink wine and write poems, leaving many famous poems. For example, Du Fu's "jathyapple on August 15th" uses the bright moon symbolizing reunion to contrast his wandering worries in a foreign land; Su Shi, a literary giant in the Song Dynasty, was drunk in the Mid-Autumn Festival and wrote "Water Tune Song Tou", which is a metaphor for people's clutch by the lack of the moon.
2. Watch the tide
The custom of watching tide in Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history, and it was described in detail in Mei Cheng's famous poem "Qi Fa" in Han Dynasty. After the Han Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival tide watching became more popular. There are also records of watching the tide in Zhu Tinghuan's Supplementing the Past Events of Wulin in Ming Dynasty and Meng Liang Lu by Zi Mu in Song and Wu Dynasties. In addition to enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, tide watching is another Mid-Autumn Festival event.
3. Eat moon cakes
The word moon cake originated from Wu Zimu's "Dream of Liang Lu" in the Southern Song Dynasty, when it was only a snack food. Later, people gradually associate enjoying the full moon together with the mooncakes, symbolizing family reunion and carrying their thoughts. In the Song Dynasty, moon cakes were known as "lotus leaf" and "hibiscus", and their production methods were more exquisite. After the Song Dynasty, making moon cakes not only pays attention to taste, but also designs related to the legend of the Moon Palace on the cake surface.
4. Burn the lamp
On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the sky is as clear as water and the moon is as bright as a mirror, which can be described as a beautiful scene. However, the ancients were not satisfied with this, so there was a custom of "burning lights" to help the moonlight. The internal combustion candle of Mid-Autumn Night Lantern is tied to a bamboo pole with a rope, which is high on the tile eaves or terrace, or it is built into a font or various shapes with small lights and hung at the height of the house, commonly known as' Mid-Autumn Festival on a tree' or' Mid-Autumn Festival vertically'.
The lamp hung by a wealthy family can be as high as tens of feet. Family members gather under the lamp to enjoy drinking, while ordinary people erect a flagpole and two lanterns to enjoy themselves. The city is full of lights and glass world. "
5. Play with lanterns
There is no large lantern festival in Mid-Autumn Festival, and playing with lanterns is mainly between families and children. As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, in the Old Wulin Story, it was recorded that the Mid-Autumn Festival was a custom, and there was an activity of "putting a little red lamp into the river to drift and play".
Playing lanterns in the Mid-Autumn Festival is mostly concentrated in the south. For example, at the autumn festival in Foshan, there are all kinds of colored lights: sesame lights, eggshell lights, wood shavings lights, straw lights, fish scales lights, chaff lights, melon seeds lights, birds, animals, flowers and trees lights, etc.