Enjoy the bright full moon.
In the Mid-Autumn Festival, China has the custom of enjoying the moon since ancient times. In the Book of Rites, there is a record of "autumn dusk and evening moon", that is, worshipping the moon god. In the Zhou Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was held every year to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon. Set up a big incense table with seasonal fruits such as moon cakes, watermelons, apples, plums and grapes, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable. Watermelon must be cut into lotus shapes.
In the Tang dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy the moon and play with it on the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was more popular to enjoy the moon. According to "Tokyo Dream", "On the Mid-Autumn Festival night, your family decorated the pavilion, and the people competed for food." On this day, all shops and restaurants in Beijing will redecorate their facades, tie silk ornaments on archways and sell fresh fruits and exquisite food. The night market is very lively. Many people visit The Upper Terrace, and some wealthy families enjoy the moon in their gazebo, and arrange food or family banquets for children to get together and talk about it together.
After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival remains the same. Many places have formed special customs such as burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting tower lanterns, putting sky lanterns, walking on the moon and dancing dragons.
Eat moon cakes
Both urban and rural residents in China have the custom of eating moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival. As the saying goes, "Mid-Autumn moon cakes are sweet and fragrant on August 15th". Moon cakes were originally used to worship the moon god. The word "moon cake" first appeared in Liang Lumeng written by Wu, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, it was just a cake-like food like Ling Hua cake. Later, people gradually combined Mid-Autumn Festival with tasting moon cakes symbolizing family reunion.
Mooncakes were originally made at home, and the practice of mooncakes was recorded in Yuan Mei's "Suiyuan Food List" in Qing Dynasty. In modern times, with workshops specializing in making moon cakes, the production of moon cakes has become more and more elaborate, with exquisite fillings and beautiful appearance. There are also various exquisite designs printed on the outside of the moon cakes, such as "the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon", "jathyapple of the Galaxy" and "Three Tans Printing the Moon". It has become the wish of people all over the world to show people's reunion with a full moon, to show people's eternal life with a round moon cake, to pin their thoughts on their hometown and relatives and to pray for a bumper harvest and happiness. Mooncakes are also used as gifts for relatives and friends and for connecting feelings.
Other Mid-Autumn Festival customs
China has a vast territory, a large population and different customs. The Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in a variety of ways, with strong local characteristics.
In Pucheng, Fujian, in order to live longer, women must pass through nanpu bridge during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In Jianning, hanging lanterns on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival is a good sign to ask for children from the Moon Palace. People in Shanghang County celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and most of their children are invited to visit their parents when they are in Yue Bai. When Longyan people eat moon cakes, parents will dig out round cakes with a diameter of two or three inches in the center for their elders to eat, which means that this secret can't be told to the younger generation. This custom stems from the legend that moon cakes contain anti-meta-killing information. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival in Kinmen, Yue Bai should worship God.
There is a custom of Mid-Autumn Festival Yue Bai in Chaoshan, Guangdong, which is mainly aimed at women and children. There is a saying that "men are under the moon, and women don't sacrifice stoves." At night, when the bright moon rises, women set up a case to pray in the yard and balcony. Silver candles burned high, cigarettes lingered, and the table was filled with good fruits and cakes as sacrifices. There is also the custom of eating taro in the Mid-Autumn Festival. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "When the river talks to the mouth, taro will be eaten." August is the harvest season of taro, and farmers are used to using taro to worship their ancestors. Of course, this has something to do with farming, but there is also a popular folk legend: 1279, Mongolian nobles destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, established the Yuan Dynasty, and brutally ruled the Han people. Mafa resisted the Yuan Dynasty. After the city was broken, the people were slaughtered. In order not to forget the suffering of Hu people's rule, later generations used taro as a homonym with "Hu tou", which looked like a human head, in order to pay homage to their ancestors and pass it down from generation to generation.
Burning towers on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival is also very popular in some places. Towers vary in height from 1-3 meters, and are mostly made of broken tiles. Large towers are also made of bricks, accounting for about 1/4 of the tower height, and then stacked with tiles, with a tower mouth at the top, for transporting fuel. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, it will be lit and burned. The fuel is wood, bamboo, chaff, etc. When the fire is booming, rosin powder will be poured to cheer, which is very spectacular. There are also regulations for burning stupas among the people. Whoever burns the pagoda to a full house will win, while those who fail or collapse in the burning process will fail. The winner will be awarded colorful flags, bonuses or prizes by the host. It is said that burning towers is also the origin of the Han people's resistance to cruel rulers and the Mid-Autumn Uprising at the end of Yuan Dynasty.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the folk customs in Jiangnan are also varied. Nanjing people love to eat moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival, so they must eat osmanthus duck, a famous Jinling dish. "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck" should be listed when cinnamon is fragrant. It is fat but not greasy and delicious. After drinking, you must eat a small piece of sugar taro and pour it with cinnamon pulp. The beauty is self-evident. "Guijiang" was named after Qu Yuan's "Chu Ci Shao Si Ming" and "Fubei closed the door and drank Guijiang". Cinnamon pulp is a kind of sweet-scented osmanthus, which is picked around the Mid-Autumn Festival and pickled with sugar and sour plum. Jiangnan women are good at turning poems and songs into delicacies on the table. Nanjing people enjoy the moon with their families, which is called "celebrating reunion", sitting and drinking together is called "full moon", and traveling in the market is called "walking on the moon".
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there was a moon-viewing building and a moon-playing bridge in Nanjing. In the Qing Dynasty, a moon-watching building was built at the foot of Shishan Mountain, all of which were for people to enjoy the moon, and most people played the Moon-watching Bridge. When the bright moon is high, people climb the Moon Tower, play the Moon Bridge and enjoy the Jade Rabbit together. "Dayue Bridge" is located on the Qinhuai River, next to the Confucius Temple, and is the residence of the famous prostitute Ma Xianglan. On this night, scholars gathered on the bridge to play flute and sing, reminiscing about Niuzhu playing with the moon and writing poems to the moon, so it was called playing on the moon bridge. After the demise of the Ming Dynasty, it gradually declined, and later generations have a poem saying: "The romantic Southern Song Dynasty is over, leaving the west wind as a long slab bridge, but I remember sitting on the Yuren Bridge and teaching to play the flute in the moonlight." Long Banqiao, the original Moon Bridge. In recent years, the Confucius Temple in Nanjing has been renovated, some pavilions and pavilions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties have been restored, and rivers have been dredged. Until the Mid-Autumn Festival, you can enjoy playing with the moon together.
In Wuxi County, Jiangsu Province, it is necessary to burn incense in the evening of Mid-Autumn Festival. There is gauze silk around the incense barrel, which depicts the scenery in the moon palace. There are also incense sticks woven with thread incense, with paper kuixing and colorful banners inserted on them. Shanghai people's Mid-Autumn Festival banquet is accompanied by osmanthus honey wine.
On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival in Ji 'an County, Jiangxi Province, every village burns crocks with straw. When the crock turns red, put vinegar in it. At this time, there will be a fragrance floating all over the village. During the Mid-Autumn Festival in Xincheng County, grass lanterns were hung from the evening of August 1 1 to August 17.
Children build hollow pagodas with bricks during the Mid-Autumn Festival in Wuyuan County, Anhui Province. Curtains, plaques and other decorations are hung on the tower, and a table is placed in front of the tower, displaying various utensils dedicated to the "tower god". At night, lights and candles are lit inside and out. Children in Jixi Mid-Autumn Festival are playing with Mid-Autumn firecrackers. Mid-Autumn Festival firecrackers are braided with straw, picked up and smashed stones after soaking, making a loud noise, which is a custom in Youlong. A fire dragon is a dragon made of grass with incense in it. When you visit the dragon, there will be gongs and drums teams, and they will tour the village before being sent to the river.
In Sichuan province, in addition to eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival, people also eat cakes, ducks, sesame cakes and honey cakes. In some places, orange lanterns are also lit and hung at the door to celebrate. There are also children burning incense on grapefruit and dancing along the street, which is called "dancing meteor ball". The Mid-Autumn Festival in Jiading County is called "viewing the meeting" because of offering sacrifices to the land gods and performing zaju, vocal music and cultural relics.
In the north, farmers in Qingyun County, Shandong Province sacrificed to the God of the Valley of the Earth on August 15, which is called "young Miao society". Zhucheng, Linyi, Jimo and other places should worship their ancestors in addition to enjoying the moon. Landlords in guanxian, Laiyang, Guangrao and Postal City also entertain tenants during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Jimo eats a festive food called "Mai Jian" on Mid-Autumn Festival. Lu 'an, Shanxi hosted a banquet for her son-in-law in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Datong county calls moon cakes reunion cakes, and it is a custom to keep vigil at night during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Wanquan County, Hebei Province calls the Mid-Autumn Festival "Little New Year's Day", and there are pictures of Xing Jun and Guan Di reading the Spring and Autumn Festival at night on moonlight paper. Hejian county people think that Zhong Qiuyu is bitter rain. If it rains in the Mid-Autumn Festival, the local people think that vegetables must not be delicious.
On the Mid-Autumn Night in Xixiang County, Shaanxi Province, men went boating and climbed cliffs, and women arranged a grand banquet. Whether you are poor or rich, you must eat watermelon. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, drummers blow drums along the door to ask for money. In Luochuan county, parents lead students to bring gifts for their husbands, and lunch is more than school dinner.
Some places have also formed many special Mid-Autumn Festival customs. Besides enjoying the moon, offering sacrifices to the moon and eating moon cakes, there are dragon dances in Hong Kong, piling towers in Anhui, Mid-Autumn Festival in Guangzhou, tower-burning boys in Jinjiang, moon-watching in Shihu, Suzhou, moon-jumping by Dai and Miao, moon-stealing dishes by Dong and dancing in the mountains.