1
Eat moon cakes
According to Records of Luozhong, Tang Xizong ate moon cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival, which was very delicious, so he ordered the imperial kitchen to wrap the moon cakes in HongLing and give them to the new Jinshi. This may be the earliest record of moon cakes that we can see. In the Song Dynasty, mooncakes were known as "lotus leaf", "golden flower" and "hibiscus", and their production methods were more exquisite. Su Dongpo, a poet, praised it in a poem: "A small cake is like chewing the moon, with crispness and satiety in it." Crisp is crispy, and pulp is sugar. Its taste is sweet, crisp, fragrant and beautiful.
2
enjoy a bright full moon
Appreciating the moon comes from offering sacrifices to the moon, and serious sacrifices have turned into relaxed pleasures. Folk Mid-Autumn Festival moon appreciation activities began in Wei and Jin Dynasties, but it did not become a custom. In the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and many poets wrote poems about the moon in their masterpieces. By the time of the Song Dynasty, a Mid-Autumn Festival centered on the activities of appreciating the moon was formed and officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival. Different from the Tang people, the Song people appreciate the moon more because they feel hurt by things, and often use rain or shine as a metaphor for human affairs. Even on the Mid-Autumn night, the clear light of the bright moon can't hide the sadness of the Song people. But for the Song people, there is another form of Mid-Autumn Festival, that is, it is a secular and joyful festival: "Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, all the shops sold new wine, your family decorated pavilions, and the people competed for the restaurant to play with the moon, and the songs spread far and wide, and they played until dawn." The Mid-Autumn Festival in the Song Dynasty is a sleepless night. The night market is open all night, and there are endless tourists playing with the moon.
three
Sacrifice the Moon
In ancient times, there was a custom of "autumn dusk and evening moon". The evening moon is to worship the moon god. Set up a big incense table, and put moon cakes, watermelons, apples, red dates, plums, grapes and other sacrifices, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable, and watermelons should be cut into lotus shapes.
Under the moon, put the moon statue in the direction of the moon, and the red candle burns high. The whole family worships the moon in turn, and then the housewife cuts up the reunion moon cake. Cut the people in advance to calculate the number of people in the whole family, at home and in the field, all together, can not cut more or less, the size should be the same.
four
Burning lamp
The internal combustion candle of Mid-Autumn Night Lantern is tied to a bamboo pole with a rope, hung high on the tile eaves or terrace, or hung in a zigzag or various shapes with small lights 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. It seems that since ancient times, the custom of burning lanterns in Mid-Autumn Festival seems to be second only to the Lantern Festival in scale.
five
Tidal bore watching
"Knowing that the Jade Rabbit is very round, it has been frosty and cold in September. Send a message to shut the door and close the key, and the night tide will stay in the moon. " This is the poem "Watching the Tide on August 15th" written by Su Shi, a great poet in the Song Dynasty. In ancient times, in addition to enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival in Zhejiang, tide watching was another Mid-Autumn Festival event. The custom of watching tide in Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history, which was described in detail in Mei Cheng's Fu of Seven Hair in Han Dynasty. After the Han Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival 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. The grand occasion of tide watching described in these two books shows that tide watching reached its peak in the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Song Dynasty.
six
Play male prostitute.
Male prostitute is a clay toy for children to play and entertain during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Its shape is human with rabbit mouth and rabbit ears. There are two long ears on the head, and the mouth is a rabbit mouth with three petals. Other places are no different from people. At present, there is no trace of male prostitute in the ordinary market, but as a folk cultural relic, it is exhibited in places like folk museums or sold in handicraft shops. Young people don't know much about it, but old people talk about it.
seven
Go to the moon
On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, there is another special activity called "Walking the Moon". In the bright moonlight, people wear gorgeous clothes, travel in groups of three or five, or go boating on the Qinhuai River, or go upstairs to watch the moonlight, talking and laughing. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a Moon-looking Building and a Moon-playing Bridge in Nanjing. In the Qing Dynasty, there was a Moon-looking Building under Lion Mountain, which was a scenic spot for tourists to enjoy the moon when they "walked on the moon". The Moon Building in Mochou Lake Park, which was built after liberation, has become a new attraction for citizens to enjoy the moon. In the old days, there was a special prayer for Nanjing people to "walk on the moon": any married woman who didn't have a son would go to the Confucius Temple and then cross a bridge, according to legend, there would be "the joy of a dream bear" (meaning to have a boy).
eight
Steal onions and vegetables
According to legend, if an unmarried girl steals vegetables or onions from another vegetable garden in the mid-autumn night, it means that she will meet a wishful man in the future. There is a saying in Taiwan Province that "steal onions and marry a good husband;" Stealing vegetables and marrying a good husband "refers to this custom."
nine
Eat ducks, snails and taro.
Mulao people in southwest China pay attention to buying cakes and killing ducks on this day. Osmanthus-scented osmanthus duck, salted duck and Zhangcha duck in Nanjing often sell well at this time. If you don't find anything, it's probably not bad to take a Beijing roast duck home to eat. Folk believe that the mid-autumn snail can improve eyesight. After investigation, vitamin A contained in snail meat is an important substance of eye visual pigment, which shows that this statement is reasonable. But why do you have to eat it in the Mid-Autumn Festival? It was pointed out that before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the snails were empty, there were no snails in the abdomen, so the meat quality was particularly fat. Nowadays, in Guangzhou, many families have the habit of frying snails during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Drink osmanthus wine
Every Mid-Autumn night, people look up at the bright moon, smell the Gui Xiang, think of WU GANG cutting osmanthus, drink a cup of osmanthus wine, celebrate the sweetness of the family and get together, which has become a holiday enjoyment. Osmanthus fragrans is not only ornamental, but also edible. In Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs", there are poems such as "Help the horse to fight and drink cinnamon pulp" and "Drink cinnamon and pepper pulp". It can be seen that the age of drinking osmanthus wine in China has been quite long. But now, people mostly use red wine instead. (comprehensive)