What is the Mid-Autumn Festival? What do you eat? What month is it now?

Guide: What is Mid-Autumn Festival? What do you eat? When is the Mid-Autumn Festival? July 15th is the Mid-Autumn Festival every year. This festival, also known as Ghost Festival, is a day when ghosts bloom. So there will be many taboos and precautions. When we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, we must know the content in advance, so as not to violate taboos and make ourselves unlucky. Next, let's learn about the Mid-Autumn Festival with me.

What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?

Mid-Autumn Festival is also called Ghost Festival, and on July 30th, it is also called Day of the Dead in a few areas. 10 15, the lunar new year, is also a cold food festival. It is a traditional festival in China to commemorate the Mid-Autumn Festival of ancient sages on July 15 every year. Together with Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day, it is called the three ancient ghost festivals in China. The annual sacrificial activities are mainly held on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, but the time is not fixed. In southern China, people also have the tradition of offering sacrifices on July 14. In some places, ancestor worship ceremonies begin in early July, and ancestors are brought home at night, and then they are provided with three meals a day until the end of July.

According to legend, on the first day of the seventh lunar month, the gate of hell will be opened, and ghosts in the underworld will be chartered by Yan Luowang to return to the underworld to accept sacrifices from future generations, while ghosts without sacrifices will wander around the world looking for food. Folk belief is ancestor worship, and it is believed that ancestors will return to the home of the deceased to visit their descendants during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Therefore, people will worship their ancestors in the Mid-Autumn Festival and turn over the dead.

What is the Mid-Autumn Festival for?

offer sacrifices to ancestors

Sacrificing ancestors, folk beliefs believe that ancestors will also return home to visit their descendants at this time, so it is necessary to sacrifice ancestors, but sacrificial activities are generally carried out before the end of July in the lunar calendar, not limited to a specific day. In some areas, through some ceremonies, the souls of ancestors are brought home at night, and tea and rice are served three times every morning, noon and dusk until July 30. Burning paper money and clothes when you go back is called burning "coating", or something from Buddhism or Taoism. In some areas of Jiangxi and Hunan, Mid-Autumn Festival is more important than Tomb-Sweeping Day or Double Ninth Festival.

Put on a river lantern.

Generally, a river lantern is a lamp or candle placed on a base. It is placed in rivers, lakes and seas during the Mid-Autumn Festival to let it float, in order to cross the drowning ghosts and other ghosts in the water. The seventh month of the lunar calendar is commonly known as "Ghost Moon", and the day of Ghost Festival is the day with the heaviest yin. There are also many taboos about Mid-Autumn Festival among the people, so don't violate them in daily life.

Zhongyuan pudu

On the Mid-Autumn Festival, many people will hold sacrificial activities with wine, meat, sugar cakes, fruits and other sacrifices between the first day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, in order to comfort many ghosts who are playing on earth and pray for their safety and success all the year round. More solemn even asked monks and Taoists to recite scriptures. During this period, some people will invite Buddha statues such as Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and Mulianzun to place high platforms, or invite artists to play the exorcist Zhong Kui (among them, artists are invited to manipulate Zhong Kui puppets) to eliminate the rage of the deceased.

It is said that July and a half coincides with the alternation of summer and autumn. At this point, it is precisely the node where yin and yang alternate between heaven and earth. Yang rises and falls, and Yin shows. On this day, the underground palace opens the gates of hell and releases ghosts, so the activities of offering sacrifices to ghosts are generally carried out. Later generations also said that the whole lunar July should be "Ghost Festival". On the first day of the seventh lunar month, the prince of Yan opened the gate of hell, released ghosts for the dead to eat and enjoyed people's offerings. On the last day of July, the ghost gate closed again, and the ghosts were going back to the underworld.

Burn paper money for the dead

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, burning paper is the most prominent folk belief. According to legend, the dead paper is money from the underworld, and people burn paper to give money to their dead ancestors and relatives. Usually, you should leave a few pieces of paper on the grave and burn it at the crossroads. The purpose is to give some alms to the wild ghosts who can go back to You's home, so that they can stop robbing their ancestors.

Incense burning and cannon burning

Every night on July 14 or 15, we burn incense and set off firecrackers outside the door, "burning bags" (also called "recommending bags").

Pray for a bumper harvest

Sacrifice in the Mid-Autumn Festival is usually associated with the hope of a bumper harvest. On the night of Shigu, every household should burn incense at home, wish rice a bumper harvest, and put incense sticks on the ground. This is called "planting rice" (transplanting rice). The more you plant, the better, which symbolizes the bumper harvest of rice in autumn.

What to eat in Mid-Autumn Festival?

Eat steamed stuffed buns, ducks, simple tea rice and rice noodles in Mid-Autumn Festival. In the Mid-Autumn Festival, Cantonese people have the custom of eating rice flour. Eating Seto powder in Mid-Autumn Festival means longevity. Mid-Autumn Festival is the name of Taoism, commonly known as ancestor worship festival on July 30 and July 14, and Buddhism is called Yulanben Festival. Festival customs mainly include offering sacrifices to ancestors, setting off river lanterns, offering sacrifices to the dead, burning paper ingots and offering sacrifices to the ground.

When is the Mid-Autumn Festival?

The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is the Mid-Autumn Festival, commonly known as Ghost Festival and July 30th. Buddhism is called Bonihara Festival, which is a day for Han people to sacrifice their ancestors. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also called Shigu, Ghost Festival, Arahara Festival, Solitary Festival, Local Officials' Day, July 30, Ancestor Festival and July 30.