EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL | 中秋节
The autumn breeze feels cool and crisp against your skin. Listen carefully to the cricket sounds in the trees nearby. The last of the fireflies glimmering their final glow. Sitting in your yard with a large table of delicacies, surrounded by family. Soaking in the peace as you look up at the cloudless night sky, looking directly at the full moon that seems especially bright on this special night. The night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Didn’t that scenario sound lovely? Aside from the cloudless sky, it is a very accurate description of what it looks like for a family celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. Taking place on the 15th day of the eighth month according to the lunar calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the second largest Chinese traditional holiday right behind Chinese New Year. It was established in 2008 to be a statutory holiday. Many families look forward to this time of year because it is a day for gathering together and enjoying the company of loved ones.
Origin
The phrase Mid-Autumn Festival or 中秋节(zung1 cau1 zit3; zhōng qiū jié), was first seen recorded in records from the Tang Dynasty. It is a celebration to show the respect and admiration people had towards Astronomy. Similar to the other traditional Chinese holidays, the Mid-Autumn Festival was developed from traditional practices. Starting from the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States period, the emperor has been worshiping the moon. According to 礼记(lai5 gei3; lǐ jì), a record of the worshiping rituals of ancient emperors, “天子春朝日, 秋夕月”(tin1 zi2 ceon1 ciu4 jat6, cau1 zik6 jyut6; tiān zǐ chūn zhāo rì, qiū xī yuè) meaning the emperor worships the sun in the spring and worships the moon in autumn. Another reason for this celebration can be explained by autumn being the season of harvest. In order to give gratitude to harvesting, the people celebrate as a way to pay respects to autumn. 中秋 means the middle of autumn. Lunar August 15th gives a clear marking on the calendar on when this holiday takes place. Lunar august is when most vegetation comes to maturity. Being the middle month of the autumn season, 15th being the halfway date of the month, it is not hard to remember when the holiday will be coming up.
Celebrations
The Tang Dynasty was filled with well known poets and authors who left behind stories and myths about the moon. Stories like Chang E’ Flying to the Moon and The Rabbit on the Moon leave the holiday with a rather romantic atmosphere, which attracted more people to participate in the celebrations. During the Ming and Qing Dynasty, the worship rituals became significant. The people believed that proper rituals will bring them happiness and fulfill their wishes. Worship tables full of fruit and mooncakes will be set up in the direction of the moon and people will have to bow while holding ritualistic incense.
Nowadays, families do not have such traditional practices anymore. They are replaced by get together feasts and other festivities like lighting lanterns. In some places you will also see the Fire Dragon Dance in the belief that the dragon will take away all misfortune when it returns to the sea.
Angie (blog master): How My Family Celebrate
Every family has their own ways of celebrating. In my family, our ways of celebration may vary each year. We might go out and have a big family dinner, host a potluck, or go for dim sum in the morning. But what doesn’t change is that at night, after dinner, we will gather together to admire the full moon. Our table will be filled with fruits such as grapes and grapefruit, small taros, chestnuts, stir fried river snails (sounds nasty but it’s delicious), and all different kinds of mooncakes. My favorites being the double egg yolk white lotus mooncake and the pandan mooncake. Our family will bring out our best tea leaves and pour ourselves a good cup of hot tea. The aroma and slight bitterness of the tea eases the sweetness level of the mooncake. We chat and host talent shows so the children of the family can show off what they have learned in the past year. I even remembered doing a stand up comedy once. I love the Mid-Autumn Festival. It will always give me a feeling of coziness and happiness.
Jade (Inspirlang founder): How My Family Celebrates
Mid-autumn festival is more than just eating mooncakes, and it holds a significant place in my heart for family reunions. In most years, my family and I would gather together at night to taste different flavors of mooncakes. We would get a big mooncake and cut it into four, and each person would have a piece. We would all hope to get a piece with the egg yolk because that overpowers the slight dryness in traditional mooncakes. Then we would have freshly-brewed green tea to go with it. To add an extra flavor, my dad would stir fry some snails we buy from the market along with scallion, ginger, and black bean paste. We would also hang lanterns outdoors to increase the holiday ambiance.
Last year, I was very fortunate that my schedule lined up and I got to celebrate the mid-autumn festival with my grandma, ngin-ngin, in China. The last time we celebrated together was fourteen years ago! She fed me mooncakes, and I put rabbit lanterns around her. We had a total blast. After her passing this year, our last Mid-Autumn Festival has become one of the most memorable and fond times with my grandma. To many people, the holiday is that time of the year to eat mooncake again; to many others, it is a time of longing for those they love.
Okay. now that you know a little about the Mid-Autumn Festival, you definitely have something to talk about at the dinner table at this year’s gathering (On Tuesday September 17th, 2024). You might also want to check out some of the myths and stories we mentioned about the moon. They are really interesting and would be the perfect way to create the needed atmosphere at your celebrations. If you want to take it up a notch and tell these stories in Cantonese or you just simply want to communicate better with your family members, you can check out our learn to speak Cantonese, Mandarin or Taishanese resources listed below for a quick power lesson.
You can also check out how to say different flavors of mooncakes from our most recent podcast episodes:
Learn Cantonese Daily: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/inspiringjade/episodes/2024-09-13T16_01_01-07_00
Learn Mandarin Daily: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/inspirlangmandarin/episodes/2024-09-13T15_43_11-07_00
Learn Taishanese Daily: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/learntaishanesedaily/episodes/2024-09-13T15_32_01-07_00
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