Why is there Laba Festival?

This is a traditional festival in China.

In ancient times, some parts of our country had the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods in the twelfth lunar month, praying for a bumper harvest and good luck.

Laba Festival is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month (December), which originated in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties. It is said that when Zhu Yuanzhang was in trouble and suffering in prison, it was freezing. The hungry Zhu Yuanzhang actually found some seven or eight kinds of miscellaneous grains such as red beans, rice and red dates from the mouse hole in prison. Zhu Yuanzhang cooked these things into porridge. Because it was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Zhu Yuanzhang called this pot of miscellaneous grains porridge Laba porridge.