Urgently about the Mid-Autumn Festival origin, customs of about 300 words of English composition?!!!

China's ancient rituals and customs of sacrificing to the moon, according to the "Zhouli" records, the Zhou Dynasty, there has been "Mid-Autumn Night to welcome the cold", "Autumn Equinox Eve (moon worship)" activities; the middle of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, but also the time of the autumn harvest, the people in order to thank the gods and goddesses for their blessings. 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, which was the best time to view the moon. Therefore, the moon festival was gradually replaced by moon viewing, 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 many other elements of traditional Chinese culture, eventually forming an important festival rich in connotation. The most famous of these is a series of myths surrounding the Moon Palace, such as Chang'e Runs to the Moon, Wu Gang Loves Gui, and Emperor 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 feasting during the Mid-Autumn Festival was already 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 linked together. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival may have become a regular festival. However, at that time, the Mid-Autumn Festival still seemed to focus 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. Northern Song Dynasty, officially set August 15 for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and appeared "small cakes such as chewing the moon, there are crispy and syrup" festival food, moon watching, eating mooncakes, osmanthus, tide and other festivities have become a trend. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Mid-Autumn Festival became the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival, along with New Year's Day. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, every family should set up a "moonlight place", prepare fruits and mooncakes, and "worship to the moon", the mooncakes must be round, and the fruits and gourds are cut into lotus-like petals. The moonlight paper is sold in the market, on which the moon god and the jade rabbit pounding medicine are painted. After the moon festival, the moonlight paper is burned and the fruitcakes offered 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 have banquets to enjoy the moon, a festive scene.

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival has increasingly occupied an important position in people's lives, spreading not only throughout the country, but also in many of China's ethnic minorities and Southeast Asia. On the basis of the activities such as enjoying the moon, eating moon cakes, etc., various places have also gradually developed "selling rabbits", "tree Mid-Autumn Festival", "fire dragon dance", "walking on 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 that are generally accepted around the world, as well as customs that are 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, 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 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 enjoy 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 laurel and tide, the old Beijing popular play rabbit, in addition to Guangzhou's tree in the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Anhui region of the burnt tower, Hong Kong's fire dragon dance, etc., many ethnic minorities also have jumping, moon worship and other mid-autumn festival customs, these activities greatly enriched China's traditional festivals and cultures.

Folk moon worship

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the relationship between the times, the reality of social life in the utilitarian factors prominent, the festival of the year in the secular interest YuYiYi thick, to "enjoy the moon" as the center of the lyrical and mythological literati traditions weakened, the utilitarian worship, prayers and secular emotions, aspirations constitute the main form of the common people's Mid-Autumn Festival. The main form of the popular Mid-Autumn Festival customs. As a result, "folk moon worship" has become a symbol of people's desire for reunion, happiness and well-being, and a way to send their love to the moon.

Moonlight Horse

The image of the moon god in the Ming and Qing dynasties underwent an important change, evolving from the early purely Taoist-colored Chang'e-dominated moon palace scene to a secular image of a Buddhist-Taoist fusion of the moonlight Bodhisattva and the medicine-pounding Jade Rabbit. During this period, people made offerings of moonlight paper, also called "moonlight horses," painted with the moonlight Bodhisattva. Fucha Dunchong's Yanjing Shishiji (1906) recorded that "the moonlight horse was a symbol of the Buddha. Records: "The moonlight horse, made of paper, painted on the top of the star of Taiyin, like the Bodhisattva, and the moon palace and the rabbit pounding medicine. People stand and hold a pestle, algae color exquisite, brilliant gold and blue, the market stalls sell a lot of them. Longer seven, eight feet, short two, three feet, the top of the two flags, for red and green, fence or yellow, to the moon and offer. Burning incense to perform rituals, after the sacrifice with a thousand sheets, Yuanbao, etc. and burned."

Rabbit masters

Rabbit masters originated around the end of the Ming Dynasty. Ming Jikun (around 1636) of the "Flower King Pavilion Remaining Manuscripts": "Beijing Mid-Autumn Festival in the form of a rabbit in the mud, dressed and seated like a man, the children sacrificed and worshiped." In the Qing Dynasty, the function of the rabbit has been changed from moon worship to children's Mid-Autumn Festival toys. The production is also increasingly sophisticated, there are dressed as a military general wearing armor, clad in ji robe, there are also back inserted paper flag or umbrella, or sitting or standing. Sitting there are unicorns, tigers and leopards and so on. There are also dressed as a rabbit head and body vendors, or shaving master, or sewing shoes, selling wontons, tea, to name a few.

"Every Mid-Autumn Festival, the city people of the clever, with the yellow earth rolled into a toad rabbit image to sell, called the rabbit." In the old days, Beijing Dongsi Pailou area, there are often rabbit stalls, specializing in the sale of the Mid-Autumn Festival moon ritual with the rabbit. In addition, the southern paper store, incense and candles are also sold. This rabbit master, after the bold creation of folk artists, has been personified. It is a rabbit head and body, holding a jade pestle. Later, some people imitated the characters of the opera, the rabbit carved into a gold helmet and gold armor warriors, some riding a lion, elephant and other beasts, some riding a peacock, cranes and other flying birds. Especially the rabbit riding a tiger, although strange, but it is the bold creation of folk artists. There is also an elbow joint and lower jaw can move the rabbit, commonly known as "Ba da mouth", more pleasing to the eye. Although it is a moon worship offerings, but it is really a wonderful toy for children.

Playing with lanterns

Mid-Autumn Festival, there are a lot of game activities, the first is to play with lanterns. Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the three major lantern festivals in China, and it is important to play with lanterns during the festival. Of course, there are no large-scale lantern festivals like the Lantern Festival in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and playing with lanterns is mainly just done among families and children.

As early as in the Southern Song Dynasty, "Old Story of Wulin", recorded in the Mid-Autumn Festival, there will be 'a little red' lamps into the river to float and play activities. Mid-autumn play lanterns, mostly concentrated in the south. Such as the aforementioned Foshan Autumn Colors, there are all kinds of colorful lanterns: sesame lamps, eggshell lamps, shavings lamps, straw lamps, fish scale lamps, grain lamps, melon seed lamps and birds and animals, flowers and trees lamps, etc., is amazing.

Additionally the south is also widely circulated burn tile sub-lamp (or burn flower tower, burn tile tower, burn fan tower) game, in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places have been circulated. Such as "Chinese national customs" Volume V: Jiangxi "Mid-Autumn Festival night, the general children in the field to pick up tiles, piled up into a round tower shape, there are many holes. At dusk under the bright moon in the wood tower burned. Once the tile burns red, and then splashed with kerosene, oil on fire, and then all of a sudden the field red, shining like day. Until the end of the night, no one to watch, and then splash rest, is the name of the burning tile lights. Chaozhou, Guangdong, burning tile tower, also made of brick and tile hollow tower, filled with twigs burning fire. At the same time also burning smoke pile, that is, the grass and firewood piled into a heap, burned at the end of the moon worship. In the Guangxi border area of the burning tower, also similar to this activity, but folklore is to commemorate the Qing dynasty resistance to the famous general Liu Yongfu will escape into the tower of the ghosts (French invaders) burned to death of the heroic battle, quite patriotic ideas. In Fujian Jinjiang, there is also the activity of "burning pagodas".

Legend has it that this custom is related to the righteousness of the resistance against the Yuan soldiers. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, the bloody rule of the Han people, so the Han people will be unyielding resistance, all over the Mid-Autumn Festival to meet the uprising, in the top of the pagoda fire as a signal. Similar to the Peak Fire Terrace fire uprising, this resistance was suppressed, but survived the custom of burning pagodas. This legend is similar to the legend of eating mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival