The Origin and Customs of Mid-Autumn Festival

August 15th of the lunar calendar is the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival in China. "Moonlight is the brightest night of the year, and people thousands of miles away are enjoying it." . The Mid-Autumn Festival is named because its value is only half that of Sanqiu. It is also called the Reunion Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and August Festival. There are different views on the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival. According to experts' research, among the three traditional festivals in China-Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival came into being at the latest. However, like other traditional festivals, Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history, which can be traced back to the ancient custom of respecting the moon and autumn worship activities.

In ancient China, there was a custom of offering sacrifices to the moon a long time ago. According to Zhou Li, in the Zhou Dynasty, there were activities such as "welcoming the cold in the mid-autumn night" and "Yue Bai in the autumn equinox". The mid-August of the lunar calendar is also the time for the harvest of autumn grain. People hold a series of ceremonies and celebrations to thank the gods for their protection. This is the so-called "Autumn Newspaper". Mid-Autumn Festival, the temperature is cool but not cold, the sky is crisp, and the moon is in the sky, which is the best season to enjoy the moon. As a result, the composition of the festival was gradually replaced by enjoying the moon, and the color of the sacrifice gradually faded, but the festival continued and was given new significance.

During the evolution of Mid-Autumn Festival, ancient etiquette and customs combined many factors such as myths and legends in China traditional culture, and finally formed an important festival with rich connotations. Among them, the most famous is a series of myths surrounding the Moon Palace, such as the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, Wu Gang's felling of Guangxi, and Tang's visit to the Moon Palace. These endow the Moon Palace with a mysterious and gorgeous aura like colorful neon, which makes it full of romance. The custom of enjoying the moon and feasting in the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Tang Dynasty has always been quite popular. From the numerous poems describing the Mid-Autumn Festival handed down, we can see that the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon and other myths are all related to the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival may have become a fixed festival. However, at that time, the Mid-Autumn Festival seemed to be mainly about enjoying and playing with the moon, but it was not widely popular among the people.

The formal formation of the Mid-Autumn Festival, especially its popularity among the people, should be in the Song Dynasty. In the Northern Song Dynasty, August 15th was officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival, and seasonal foods such as "small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy glutinous rice inside" appeared, and festivals such as enjoying the moon, eating moon cakes, enjoying the moon and watching the tide became common. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival was as famous as New Year's Day and became the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, every family should set up a "moonlight position" to prepare melon and fruit moon cakes, which must be round and cut into lotus-shaped teeth. Moonlight paper is on sale in the market, with designs such as Moon God and Jade Rabbit painted on it. After the festival, burn paper and distribute fruitcakes to every family member. Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for family reunion. People give moon cakes to each other to express their good wishes, and many families also hold banquets to enjoy the moon, which is a grand occasion of the festival.

Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival has played an increasingly important role in people's lives, not only in all parts of the country, but also among many ethnic minorities in China and Southeast Asia. On the basis of enjoying the moon and eating moon cakes, various festivals such as "selling male prostitutes", "planting Mid-Autumn Festival", "dragon dancing" and "walking on the moon" have gradually developed in various places, making the Mid-Autumn Festival, as a traditional festival in China, more culturally attractive.

Mid-autumn festival custom

Around the Mid-Autumn Festival, a variety of festival activities have been formed since ancient times, including popular customs generally accepted in various places, as well as customs with regional characteristics and ethnic customs.

Eat moon cakes

Eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional folk custom in China, just like eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival and glutinous rice balls on Lantern Festival. It is said that there was a custom of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Tang Dynasty, but as a food name, moon cakes were associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Song Dynasty. The royal family in the Northern Song Dynasty likes to eat a kind of "palace cake" in the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is commonly known as "small cake" among the people. Su Dongpo said in a poem: "A small cake is like chewing the moon, and there is pulp in it." Zhou Mi, a writer in the Southern Song Dynasty, first mentioned the name "moon cake" in Old Wulin. According to legend, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, people also used moon cakes to convey anti-meta information, indicating that moon cakes had entered the homes of ordinary people at that time and became a necessary food for the Mid-Autumn Festival. For a long time, China people have accumulated rich experience in making moon cakes. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, bakers printed fairy tales such as the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon on moon cakes as food art paintings. A scholar in the Qing dynasty described it as "peach-stuffed moon cakes, icing ice cream", which seems quite similar to the present moon cakes. In modern times, with workshops specializing in making moon cakes, moon cakes are made more finely, with exquisite fillings and beautiful appearance, and are also divided into flat, Soviet, Guangdong and desktop flavors. As a symbol of auspiciousness and reunion, moon cakes are entrusted with people's good wishes. The custom of eating and sending moon cakes has continued to this day.

Appreciate the bright full moon

China has had the custom of offering sacrifices to the moon since ancient times. In the Zhou Dynasty, every Mid-Autumn Festival night was held to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon. The custom of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival is very popular in the Tang Dynasty, and many poets have poems about the moon in their masterpieces. In the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was more popular. On this day, "your family decorates pavilions, and people compete for restaurants to play the moon." During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Yue Bai enjoyed more moon-watching activities. So far, there are many historical sites in China, such as the Yue Bai Altar, the Moon Pavilion and the Moon Tower. Literati have a soft spot for enjoying the moon. They went upstairs to admire the moon, or invited the moon by boating, drank wine and wrote poems, leaving many famous sentences. For example, Du Fu's "The Night of August 15th" uses the bright moon symbolizing reunion to set off his wandering worries in a foreign land; Su Shi, a literary giant in the Song Dynasty, was drunk in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and wrote "Water Tune Song Tou", which is a metaphor for people's separation due to the lack of the moon. To this day, it is still one of the essential activities of the Mid-Autumn Festival for the whole family to sit together and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the bright moon in the sky.

In addition to enjoying the moon and eating moon cakes, people in different regions also celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival according to their own regional traditions and social customs, forming different customs with strong local characteristics. For example, Mid-Autumn Festival is popular in many southern areas, and male prostitutes are popular in old Beijing. In addition, there are the Mid-Autumn Festival in Guangzhou, the burning tower in Anhui and the dragon dance in Hong Kong. Many ethnic minorities also have the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival, such as jumping on the moon and Yue Bai, which greatly enriches our traditional festival culture.