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2007-12-16 10:28 Best Answer Mid-Autumn Festival

The origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival

The fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar is the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival of our country, "a year of the moon is the most bright night, thousands of hearts **** to enjoy the time". The Mid-Autumn Festival is named after the half of the three autumns, and is also called the Reunion Festival or the Moon Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the August Festival, etc. The origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival is well known. About the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival, according to expert testimony, in the three traditional Chinese festivals - Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival formed the latest. However, as with other traditional festivals, the Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history, which can be traced back to the ancient custom of honoring the moon and autumn rituals.

China's ancient rituals and customs of moon worship, according to the "Zhouli" records, the Zhou Dynasty, there are "Mid-Autumn Night to meet the cold", "Autumn Equinox Xiyue (moon worship)" activities; the middle of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, is the time of the autumn grain harvest, people in order to thank the gods and goddesses of the protection and a series of ceremonies and celebrations. In order to thank the gods and goddesses for their blessings, people hold a series of ceremonies and celebrations called "Autumn Report". During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the temperature was already cool but not yet cold, the sky was high, and the moon was bright in the middle of the sky, so it was the best time to watch the moon. Therefore, the moon festival was gradually replaced by a moon festival, and the color of the festival gradually faded away, while the festival continued and was given a new meaning.

During the evolution of the Mid-Autumn Festival, ancient rituals and customs were combined with numerous myths and legends and other elements of traditional Chinese culture to form an important festival with rich connotations. The most famous of these is the series of myths surrounding the Moon Palace, such as Chang'e running to the moon, Wu Gang licking the laurel, and Tang Ming Huang's visit to the Moon Palace, etc., which put a colorful neon-like mysterious and gorgeous halo around the Moon Palace, making it full of romantic colors. In the Tang Dynasty, the custom of enjoying the moon and having a banquet had become quite popular. From the many poems describing the Mid-Autumn Festival that have been handed down, it can be seen that the myth of Chang'e running to the moon and the Mid-Autumn Festival were already linked together. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival may have become a regular festival. However, at that time, it seemed that the Mid-Autumn Festival was still focused on moon viewing and playing with the moon, and was not yet widely popular among the people.

The formalization of the Mid-Autumn Festival, especially its popularity among the people, should be a matter of the Song Dynasty. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the 15th day of the 8th month was officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival, and there appeared "small cakes such as chewing the moon, there are crispy and syrupy" festive food, enjoying the moon, eating mooncakes, enjoying the osmanthus, watching the tide, and other festivities became a trend. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival became the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival, along with New Year's Day. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, every family would set up a "moonlight place", prepare fruits and mooncakes, and "worship the moon"; the mooncakes must be round, and fruits and fruits must be cut into lotus-like petals. Moonlight paper is sold in the market, with designs of the moon god and the Jade Rabbit pounding medicine on it. After the moon festival, the moonlight paper is burned and the fruitcakes are distributed to each member of the family. Mid-Autumn Festival is a day of family reunion, people give each other mooncakes to express their good wishes, and many people also hold banquets to enjoy the moon, a festive scene.

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival has been occupying an increasingly important position in people's lives, spreading not only throughout the country, but also in many ethnic minorities in China and Southeast Asia. On the basis of the activities such as enjoying the moon, eating moon cakes, etc., various places also gradually developed "selling rabbits", "tree Mid-Autumn Festival", "fire dragon dance", "walking the moon" and other colorful festivals. "and other colorful festivals, making the Mid-Autumn Festival as a traditional festival in China with more cultural connotations, more fascinating.

Mid-Autumn Festival customs

Colorful festivals have been formed around the Mid-Autumn Festival since ancient times, including popular customs generally accepted in different parts of the world, as well as customs rich in regional characteristics and ethnic flavors.

Eating moon cakes

Mid-Autumn Festival to eat moon cakes, and the Dragon Boat Festival to eat zongzi, the Lantern Festival to eat dumplings, as is the traditional custom of China's folk. It is said that during the Tang Dynasty there has been the custom of eating mooncakes at mid-autumn, but mooncakes as a food name and associated with the mid-autumn moon viewing, is a thing of the Song Dynasty. The Northern Song royal mid-autumn festival like to eat a kind of "palace cake", folk commonly known as "small cake", Su Dongpo has a poem: "small cake such as chewing the moon, there are crispy and syrup." Zhou Mi, a writer of the Southern Song Dynasty, first mentioned the name "mooncake" in "Old Story of Wulin". Legend has it that at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, people also used mooncakes to convey anti-Yuan messages, indicating that mooncakes had already entered the homes of ordinary people and become a necessary food for the Mid-Autumn Festival. For a long time, our people have accumulated rich experience in making mooncakes, and during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, bakers had already printed mythological stories such as Chang'e Running to the Moon on mooncakes as food art patterns. A Qing Dynasty literati described: "mooncake full of peach meat filling, ice cream sweet laying cane sugar frosting", seems to be quite similar to the current mooncake. In modern times, there are workshops specializing in the production of mooncakes, mooncake production is more delicate, filling sophisticated, beautiful appearance, but also divided into different flavors such as flat, Suzhou, Canton, Taiwan and so on. As a symbol of good luck and reunion, mooncakes hold people's good wishes, and the custom of eating mooncakes and giving them as gifts continues to this day.

Moon Appreciation

China has had the custom of moon worship and moon appreciation since ancient times. During the Zhou Dynasty, activities to welcome the cold and offer moon worship were held every Mid-Autumn night. The custom of enjoying the moon at mid-autumn was very popular in the Tang Dynasty, and many poets had poems about the moon in their famous poems. To the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival style is more prevalent, every day, "the noble family decorative platforms and pavilions, the folk compete to occupy the restaurant to play the moon. Ming and Qing court and folk moon worship and moon viewing activities on a larger scale, China has survived many "moon worship altar", "moon worship pavilion", "moon building" and other monuments. Scholarly men and women to the moon is a favorite, or they climbed to the moon or canoeing to invite the moon, drinking and poetry, leaving a lot of popular songs of the past. For example, Du Fu "August 15 night moon" symbolizes the reunion of the fifteenth moon to reflect their own wandering in a foreign land of the sadness of the detainees; Song Dynasty literary hero Su Shi, Mid-Autumn Festival drinking up to the day, drunkenness, and made the "Song of Water," the roundness of the moon as a metaphor for the separation of the human being. Until today, sitting together as a family and enjoying the beauty of the moon in the sky is still one of the essential activities of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Besides enjoying the moon and eating mooncakes, people in different regions also celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival according to their own regional traditions and social customs, forming different Mid-Autumn Festival customs with strong local characteristics. For example, many areas in the south of the prevalent Mid-Autumn Festival to enjoy the laurel and tide, the old Beijing popular play rabbit, in addition to Guangzhou's tree Mid-Autumn Festival, the Anhui region of the burnt tower, Hong Kong's fire dragon dance, etc., many ethnic minorities also have the moon jumping, moon worship Mid-Autumn Festival customs, these activities greatly enriched the traditional festivals and culture of our country.

The Legend of Mid-Autumn Festival

Chang'e Runs to the Moon

"Chang'e Runs to the Moon" is the most fascinating mystery of the Moon Palace. The story of Chang'e running to the moon has different texts. Early records say that "Chang'e took the medicine of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West, and then ran to the moon as a moon spirit", which means that Hou Yi asked for the medicine of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West, and Chang'e stole and ate the medicine, and became an immortal, but she was punished by being turned into an ugly toad pounding the medicine of immortality in the Moon Palace. Later, this story gradually evolved into many beautiful and graceful new episodes, such as the legend that in ancient times, there were ten days in the sky at the same time, sunburned crops withered, and the people did not want to live. A hero named Hou Yi, with great strength, sympathized with the suffering people, climbed to the top of the Kunlun Mountain, and shot down nine suns in one breath, so that people could live in peace and work in contentment. Unexpectedly, the nine suns that were shot down were the sons of the Heavenly Emperor, who then angrily relegated Hou Yi and his wife Chang'e to the mortal world. The Queen Mother of the West sympathized with Hou Yi and gave him the elixir of immortality. Later, the evil-minded Feng Meng took advantage of Hou Yi's hunting trip to force Chang E to hand over the immortality pill. Knowing that she was no match for him, Chang'e took the opportunity to swallow the medicine in one gulp. Afterwards, Chang'e flew to the sky with a light weight. Since Chang'e was attached to her husband, she flew down to the moon, the closest to the earth, and became an immortal. Hou Yi went home and missed his wife, so he set up an incense burner in Chang'e's favorite garden, put in her favorite honey and fresh fruits, and made a remote sacrifice to his wife in the Moon Palace. When the people heard the news that Chang'e had run to the moon and become immortal, they set up incense under the moon and prayed to the kind Chang'e for good luck and peace. Some local legends say that this is how the Mid-Autumn Festival came to be.

Wu Gang felled the laurel

On the Mid-Autumn Festival there is another legend, according to legend, on the moon in front of the Palace of the Guanghan cinnamon tree grows luxuriantly, there are more than 500 zhang high, under the side of the man often in the felling of it, but every time to cut down, after being cut down, and then immediately close up the place. For thousands of years, it was cut down and closed up in this way, and the laurel tree could never be cut down. It is said that the man who cut down the tree was named Wu Gang, a native of Xihe in the Han Dynasty, who used to follow the immortals to practice Taoism, and when he made a mistake in the heavenly realm, the immortals relegated him to the Moon Palace, where he was punished by doing this kind of futile hard work day in and day out. It is said that he was not concentrated enough in his study of immortality, and the Heavenly Emperor, in order to refine his mind, punished him for chopping down a laurel tree, promising that if he chopped it down, he would become an immortal. So Wu Gang chopped it down day after day, year after year, in the cool moon palace.

The Jade Rabbit Pounding Medicine

"The Jade Rabbit Pounding Medicine" is one of the tales of Taoism. According to legend, there is a rabbit in the middle of the moon that is as white as jade, so it is called "Jade Rabbit". This white rabbit held a jade mortar and pestle and knelt down to pound medicine, taking the pills could lead to longevity and immortality. Over time, the Jade Rabbit became synonymous with the moon, and ancient literati writing poetry often used the Jade Rabbit to symbolize the moon.

Zhu Yuanzhang and the Moon Cake Uprising

Toward the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the people of the Central Plains were unable to endure the cruelty of the ruling class and rebelled. Zhu Yuanzhang united the various resistance forces to prepare for the uprising, the military adviser Liu Bowen came up with a brilliant plan, ordered his subordinates to hide the "August 15 night uprising" note hidden inside the cake, and then sent people to send people around the insurgent army,

Notify them in the night of August 15, the uprising response.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang and the mooncake uprising

The people of Central China were unable to bear the cruelty of the ruling class, and had rebelled against it. After the success of the uprising, Zhu Yuanzhang was happy to pass down the Oracle, the annual Mid-Autumn Festival to let all the soldiers and the people with the people, and will be used to secretly pass the message of the year when the army "moon cakes", as a holiday pastry reward for the ministers. Since then, the custom of eating mooncakes on Mid-Autumn Festival has spread among the people.