Customs and Characteristics of the Mid-Autumn Festival

The customs and characteristics of the Mid-Autumn Festival are moonlight viewing, eating mooncakes, burning incense, lighting lanterns, and guessing riddles.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the "Moon Festival", "Autumn Festival", "Mid-Autumn Festival", "August Festival ", "August Meeting", "Moon Chasing Festival", "Moon Playing Festival", "Moon Worshipping Festival ", "Daughter's Festival", "Reunion Festival", are traditional cultural festivals popular among many ethnic groups in the country. It is so named because it falls on the halfway point of the three autumns. The moon is said to be the largest, roundest and brightest on this night.

From ancient times to the present day, people have the custom of drinking and enjoying the moon on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the daughter-in-law of the bride's family must return to her husband's family on this day to symbolize the meaning of success and auspiciousness. Its origin in ancient times, popularized in the Han Dynasty, stereotyped in the early Tang Dynasty, prevalent in the Song Dynasty, and the Spring Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and known as China's four major traditional festivals. The Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the worship of celestial phenomena, and evolved from the moon sacrifice on the eve of autumn in the ancient times.

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According to the Zhou Rituals, there were already activities of "welcoming the cold on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival" and "worshiping the moon on the night of the Autumn Equinox" during the Zhou Dynasty; and in the middle of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, which is the time of harvesting of the autumn grains, the festival was held to express gratitude to the gods. In order to thank the gods and goddesses for their blessings, people held a series of ceremonies and celebrations called "Autumn Report". During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the temperature is already cool, the sky is high and the moon is bright, which is the best time to see the moon.

So, later the moon sacrifice component will gradually for the moon, the color of the sacrifice gradually faded, but this festival continues, and was given a new meaning. Northern Song Dynasty, officially set the 15th of August for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival began with the New Year's Day, becoming the second largest traditional festival in China, second only to the Spring Festival.