The Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the traditional and popupar Chinese festivals, is held on 15th day of eighth month in lunar month. This festival is to commemorate the Chang E (嫦娥 Cháng’é). It’s a fairy maiden in Chinese ancient legend. The moon on this day is extremely around so it is a symbol of reunion, people also call Mid-Autumn Festival “Reunion Day”.
Origin
The Mid-Autumn Festival(中秋节 Zhōngqiū jié)is a conventional festivity for both the Han(汉 hàn) and minority nationalities. The custom of worshipping the moon can be traced back to the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties. In the Zhou Dynasty(周朝 Zhōucháo), people hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon every time the Mid-Autumn Festival sets in. It gets really prevalent in the Tang Dynasty that people enjoy and worship the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty, therefore, individuals send round moon cakes to their friends and relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of household reunion. When it gets dark, they search up in the complete silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Ever since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration gets unprecedented popular. Together with all the celebration there seem some particular customs in diverse elements in the nation, like burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. Nonetheless, the custom of playing under the moon is just not so popular as it was once presently, nevertheless it isn’t significantly less common to enjoy the brilliant silver moon. Whenever the festival sets in, people will look up on the full silver moon, consuming wine to celebrate their satisfied daily life or thinking of their relatives and buddies far from property, and extending all of their best wishes to them.
Eating mooncake
On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is round and the Chinese people mark their Moon (or Mid-autumn) Festival. The round shape to Chinese means family reunion. Therefore the Moon Festival is a holiday for members of a family to get together wherever it is possible.
On that day sons and daughters will bring their family members back to their parents’ house for a reunion. Sometimes people who have already settled overseas will come back to visit their parents on that day.
On the Moon Festival, people eat moon cakes, a kind of cookie with fillings of sugar, fat, sesame, walnut, the yoke of preserved eggs, ham or other material. In Chinese fairy tales, there live on the moon the fairy Chang E, a wood cutter named Wu Gang(吴刚 Wú Gāng) and a jade rabbit which is Chang E’s pet. In the old days, people paid respect to the fairy Chang E and her pet the jade rabbit.
The custom of paying homage to the fairy and rabbit is gone, but the moon cakes are showing improvement every year. There are hundreds of varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of the Moon Festival this year. Some moon cakes are of very high quality and very delicious. An overseas tourist is advised not to miss it if he or she happens to be in China during the Moon Festival.
Poems on Moon and Home
The Mid-Autumn Moon
by Li Qiao(李峤 Lǐ Qiáo)
A full moon hangs high in the chilly sky,
All say it’s the same everywhere, round and bright.
But how can one be sure thousands of li away
Wind and perhaps rain may not be marring the night?
The Yo-Mei Mountain Moon
by Li Bai(李白 Lǐ Bái)
The autumn moon is half round above the Yo-mei Mountain;
The pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Ping-chiang River.
Tonight I leave Ching-chi of limpid stream for the three Canyons.
And glide down past Yu-chow, thinking of you whom I can not see
