Why is Mid-Autumn Festival called Mid-Autumn Festival?
Mid-autumn festival, that is, the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. August 15th is called Mid-Autumn Festival because July, August and September are autumn seasons all year round. August 15th is just half the time and the middle of autumn, so it is called Mid-Autumn Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon Festival, Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, August Festival, Moon Chasing Festival, Moon Festival, Daughter's Day or Reunion Festival, is a traditional cultural festival popular in many ethnic groups and countries in the Chinese character cultural circle in China. It falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, hence its name. Some places also set the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 16th of August.
What does it mean to eat moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival?
Eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival can deepen the atmosphere of reunion.
Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Reunion Festival. Because the fifteenth day of each month is the roundest, and the fifteenth day of August is crisp in autumn, and the moon is the brightest at night.
On this night, every household puts the roundest fruits and food, such as watermelons and moon cakes, on the table in the courtyard for the full moon, also called the full moon. For the sake of good luck, people should eat some moon cakes after the month of offering to celebrate the reunion.
What traditional food do you eat in Mid-Autumn Festival?
1, Osmanthus Jelly
Sweet-scented osmanthus wine, the fragrance of eight laurels, indeed, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the time when sweet-scented osmanthus is fragrant. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, many people will use osmanthus as the most Osmanthus Jelly or soak osmanthus wine. No matter whether it is Osmanthus Jelly or osmanthus wine, it exudes the unique fragrance of osmanthus.
2. Snail
In many places in Guangdong, the Mid-Autumn Festival will also have the habit of eating snails. Around the Mid-Autumn Festival, when snails are empty, there are no snails in the abdomen. Therefore, the meat is particularly plump, which is the best time to eat snails. Moreover, snail meat is rich in nutrition, and vitamin A is an important substance of eye visual pigment.
3. Moon cakes
Moon cakes are one of the most famous traditional snacks in China, and they are eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Among them, Cantonese-style, Beijing-style, Soviet-style, Chaozhou-style and Yunnan-style moon cakes are loved by people all over China. Moon cakes are round and round, and they are shared by the whole family, symbolizing reunion and harmony. They are a must-eat item on the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ancient moon cakes were eaten as sacrifices in the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is said that the custom of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Tang Dynasty.
4. Duck meat
At the end of Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian rulers oppressed the Han people, and the Han people decided to overthrow the Yuan people. But at that time, the control was strict, and it was impossible to organize the struggle clearly, so we used code words. At that time, the Han people called the Mongols "Dazi", so they took the homonym "Duck". It is agreed that eating ducks in the Mid-Autumn Festival means that everyone will take action together to overthrow the Yuan rule. Moreover, the ducks in August are fat and thin, taste good, and have the effect of nourishing yin and enriching blood.
5. Pumpkin
The Mid-Autumn Festival banquet is indispensable for family reunion. Eating some pumpkins can enhance satiety and reduce fat intake. Pumpkin ripens in autumn and is rich in dietary fiber and β-carotene, which has the effects of slowing down the increase of blood sugar, reducing blood lipid and preventing constipation. In addition, dry autumn, eat more pumpkins, but also moisturize the skin.
6. Pomegranate
Mid-Autumn Festival is when pomegranate is ripe. Because it is as red as agate, as white as crystal, and its entrance is like crystal grain jade paste, pomegranate has become one of the offerings on the table, symbolizing longevity, reunion and auspiciousness. When this thing is not peeled off, its playability is greater than its visibility. It is cool, round and smooth when touched in the hand, and its visibility is greater than its edibility after peeling off, just like small gems gathered together, which looks good. It also means a reunion.
7. Barbecue
In China's Taiwan Province Province, almost every household eats barbecue on Mid-Autumn Festival. In fact, many years ago, two soy sauce manufacturers made a big advertising campaign on TV, and many shopping malls held a special sale of barbecue-related products on the eve of Mid-Autumn Festival, so many people patronized. Unconsciously, eating barbecue on Mid-Autumn Festival has become an indispensable dish for every household.
8, taro
Cooking a large pot of small taro with clear water and eating it with sugar is a real day for poor families in the past. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the pronunciation of taro is similar to that of "shipped". Therefore, eating taro in Mid-Autumn Festival is not only to enjoy the delicious food, but also to express the hope of good luck.
9. Hairy crabs
This is a custom in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is the season of "crab paste is fat and rice flowers are fragrant". A full moon, a pot of sake, a few old friends and a plate of hairy crabs are fascinating. Back to the secular life: but today's hairy crabs must be expensive enough. You might as well save the moon for tomorrow.
10, drink osmanthus wine
Drinking osmanthus wine Every Mid-Autumn night, people look up at the osmanthus in the middle of the month, smell the Gui Xiang, drink a cup of osmanthus wine, celebrate the sweetness of the family and get together, which has become a beautiful enjoyment of the festival. Osmanthus fragrans is not only for viewing, but also has food value. In Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs", there are poems such as "Help the horse fight and drink cinnamon pulp" and "Drink cinnamon wine and drink pepper pulp". It can be seen that the age of drinking osmanthus wine in China has been quite long.
Introduction of Mid-Autumn Festival
Since ancient times, the Mid-Autumn Festival has had customs such as offering sacrifices to the moon, enjoying the moon, eating Yue Bai, enjoying osmanthus flowers and drinking osmanthus wine, which have spread to this day and lasted for a long time. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a colorful and precious cultural heritage, with the full moon as a sign of people's reunion, as the sustenance of missing their hometown and their loved ones, and hoping for a bumper harvest and happiness. Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Spring Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day are also called the four traditional festivals in China.
What are the traditions of Mid-Autumn Festival?
1, 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 wander the streets, or lack boats on the Qinhuai River, or go upstairs to watch the Yuet Moon, 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": all married women who had no sons would go to the Confucius Temple and then cross a bridge, which was said to have "the joy of a dream bear".
2. 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.
Watermelon has to 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.
3. 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.
4. Play with lanterns
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 aforementioned Foshan Autumn Festival, there were all kinds of colorful lights: sesame lights, eggshell lights, wood shavings lights, straw lights, fish scales lights, chaff lights, melon seeds lights and flowers and trees lights of birds and animals, which were amazing.
5. Watch the tide
"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 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. 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.
6. Stealing onions and vegetables
There is a saying in Taiwan Province that "steal onions and marry a good husband;" Stealing vegetables and marrying a good husband. " That is to say, if an unmarried girl steals vegetables or onions from other vegetable gardens on Mid-Autumn Night, it means that she will meet a Mr. Right in the future.