What are the customs of Mid-Autumn Festival?

What are the customs of Mid-Autumn Festival?

1, enjoy the moon

China has the custom of enjoying the moon since ancient times. It is recorded in the Book of Rites that "the moon sets at dusk in autumn", that is, to worship the moon god. In the Zhou Dynasty, every Mid-Autumn Festival night, activities to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon were held. Put 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.

Step 2 eat moon cakes

As the saying goes, "August 15th is the full moon, and Mid-Autumn moon cakes are sweet and fragrant". Moon cakes were originally used to worship the moon god. The word "moon cake" first appeared in Wu's Liang Lumeng in the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, it was just a cake-shaped food like Ling Hua cake. Later, people gradually combined the Mid-Autumn Festival with tasting moon cakes, which symbolized family reunion.

3. Sacrifice the moon

Under the moon, put the moon statue in the direction of the moon, and the red candle burns high. The whole family takes turns in Yue Bai, and then the housewife cuts the reunion moon cakes. If people are laid off in advance, the number of people in the whole family will be counted, including those at home and those from other places. You can't lay off more or less, but the size should be the same.

Step 4 light the lamp

The internal combustion candles of Mid-Autumn Night Lights are tied to bamboo poles with ropes, hung high on tile eaves or terraces, or hung on the heights of houses in zigzag or various shapes with small lights, commonly known as "Mid-Autumn Festival on trees" or "Mid-Autumn Festival vertically".

Step 5 observe the tides

In addition to enjoying the moon, tide watching is another Mid-Autumn Festival activity in Zhejiang. The custom of watching tide in Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history, which is described in detail in Mei Cheng's Seven Mao Fu in Han Dynasty. After the Han Dynasty, Mid-Autumn tide watching became more popular. There are also records of watching the tide in Zhu Tinghuan's Ming Bu Wulin Past and Zi Mu's Meng Lianglu.

6. Go to the moon

In the bright moonlight, people wear gorgeous clothes, travel in groups of three or five, or stroll the streets, or lack boats on the Qinhuai River, or go upstairs to watch the moonlight, talking and laughing. In the old days, Nanjing people had a special prayer of "walking on the moon": any married woman without a son would go to the Confucius Temple and then cross the bridge. According to legend, there would be a "dream of a bear" (meaning to have a boy).

7. Play with lanterns

Lantern playing in Mid-Autumn Festival is mostly concentrated in the south. For example, the autumn festival in Foshan mentioned earlier has all kinds of colorful lights: sesame lights, eggshell lights, wood shavings lights, straw lights, fish scales lights, chaff lights, melon seeds lights, birds, animals, flowers and trees lights, which are amazing.