Mid-Autumn Festival is a national legal holiday from 20 1 1 year. The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 20th,, this festival was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
Mid-autumn festival custom
1, Moon Festival, Moon Appreciation, Yue Bai
In the Book of Rites, it has been recorded that "autumn dusk and evening moon" means to worship the moon god, and it will be held at this time.
Welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon, and set up incense tables. In the Zhou dynasty, every mid-autumn night was held to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon. 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.
2. Watch the tide
In ancient times, in addition to enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival in Zhejiang, tide watching was another Mid-Autumn Festival event.
3. Burn the lamp
On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, there is a custom of burning lanterns to help the moonlight. Nowadays, there is still the custom of burning lamps on the tower with tiles stacked on it in Huguang area. There is a custom of making lantern boats in the south of the Yangtze River.
4. guessing puzzles
On the Mid-Autumn Festival full moon night, there are many lanterns hanging in public places. People gather together to guess the riddles written on the lanterns. Because they are the favorite activities of most young men and women, love stories are also heard at these activities, so solve riddles on the lanterns in the Mid-Autumn Festival has also been derived as a form of love between men and women.
5. Eat moon cakes
Watching the moon and eating moon cakes are the necessary customs for Mid-Autumn Festival in all parts of China. As the saying goes, "August and 15th are full, and the moon cakes are sweet and fragrant". 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. At the same time, moon cakes are also important gifts for friends to contact their feelings during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
There is also the custom of rich cake in Xiamen, Fujian, and rich cake is listed as a national intangible cultural heritage project.
6. Enjoy osmanthus and drink osmanthus wine
People often eat moon cakes and enjoy osmanthus in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and eat all kinds of foods made of osmanthus, among which cakes and sweets are the most common.
On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, looking up at the osmanthus in the middle of the month, smelling the Gui Xiang, drinking a cup of osmanthus wine and celebrating the sweetness of the family have become a beautiful enjoyment of the festival. In modern times, people mostly take red wine instead.
7. 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.
In Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other places, Mid-Autumn Festival activities will be held on Mid-Autumn Night, and the trees will be erected, which means that the lights will be erected high.
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.
There is a simple autumn lantern in Guangxi, which is made of six bamboo strips tied into a lamp, pasted with white gauze paper and inserted with candles. Hang it on the moon-offering table for the moon-offering, or for children to play with.
8, burning tower
The game of burning tile lanterns (or burning flower tower, burning tile tower and burning fan tower) is widely circulated in the south.