MIDDLE AUTUMN FESTIVAL
"Zhong Qiu Jie", which is also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. It is a time for family members and loved ones to congregate and enjoy the full moon - an auspicious symbol of abundance, harmony and luck. Adults will usually indulge in fragrant mooncakes of many varieties with a good cup of piping hot Chinese tea, while the little ones run around with their brightly-lit lanterns.
"Zhong Qiu Jie" probably began as a harvest festival. The festival was later given a mythological flavour with legends of Chang-E, the beautiful lady in the moon.
According to Chinese mythology, the earth once had 10 suns circling over it. One day, all 10 suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. The earth was saved when a strong archer, Hou Yi, succeeded in shooting down 9 of the suns. Yi stole the elixir of life to save the people from his tyrannical rule, but his wife, Chang-E drank it. Thus started the legend of the lady in the moon to whom young Chinese girls would pray at the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In the 14th century, the eating of mooncakes at "Zhong Qiu Jie" was given a new significance. The story goes that when Zhu Yuan Zhang was plotting to overthrow the Yuan Dynasty started by the Mongolians, the rebels hid their messages in the Mid-Autumn mooncakes. Zhong Qiu Jie is hence also a commemoration of the overthrow of the Mongolians by the Han people.
During the Yuan Dynasty (A.D.1206-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung Dynasty (A.D.960-1279) were unhappy at submitting to foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without it being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Packed into each mooncake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attacked and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this event.
Mid-Autumn Day is a traditional festival in China. Almost everyone likes to eat mooncakes on that day. Most families have a dinner together to celebrate the festival. A saying goes, "The moon in your hometown is almost always the brightest and roundest". Many people who live far away from homes want to go back to have a family reunion. How happy it is to enjoy the moon cakes while watching the full moon with your family members.
About the moon cakes
Moon cake, first originated in the Tang army celebration party food. Emperor in Tang dynasty years, the big campaign against the Huns victorious General Li Jing, 15 August a triumphant return.
Turpan was some business offering cake to the Tang emperor celebration party. Emperor Li Yuan took the beautiful cake box, took out a round cake, joked that the air moon said: "The cake should invite Hu toad." Having to eat cake and give the ministers.
Moon cake symbolizes reunion, the Mid-Autumn Festival will eat the product. Night at the festival, people also eat some watermelon, fruit, fruit reunion, pray his family happy, happiness, and peace.
Mid-Autumn Festival to eat moon cake, and eat dumplings Dragon, Lantern eat them as is the tradition of folk customs. Since ancient times, people as auspicious moon cake, a symbol of reunion. Every Autumn, bright, family reunion, moon cake products, chatted, enjoy family happiness. Moon cake, also known as Hu cake, Palace cake, patties, on group, family reunion cake, are to worship the ancient Mid-Autumn Moon's offerings, along the transmission down, they formed the Mid-Autumn Festival to eat moon cake of custom. Moon cake, has a long history in China. According to historical records, as early in the Yin and Zhou period, Jiangsu, Zhejiang areas have a kind of smell Chung Memorial Grand Preceptor thick edge thin heart "Grand Preceptor cake," This is our moon cake of "ancestor." Han dynasty of the Han Dynasty, the introduction of sesame, walnut, for the moon cake production added accessories, when they appeared to walnuts for the filling of the round cake, named "Hu cake."
Mid-Autumn festival custom
The joyous Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, around the time of the autumn equinox.Many referred to it simply as the "Fifteenth of the Eighth Moon".
This day was also considered as a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain had been harvested by this time and food was abundant. Food offerings were placed on an altar set up in the courtyard. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, pomegranates,melons, oranges and pomelos might be seen. Special foods for the festival included moon cakes, cooked taroand water caltropea type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns. Some people insisted that cooked taro be included because at the time of creation, taro was the first food discovered at night in the moonlight. Of all these foods, it could not be omitted from the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The round moon cakes, measuring about three inches in diameter and one and a half inches in thickness, resembled Western fruitcakes in taste and consistency. These cakes were made with melon seeds, lotus seeds, almonds, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard. A golden yolk from a salted duck egg was placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust was decorated with symbols of the festival. Traditionally, thirteen moon cakes were piled in a pyramid to symbolize the thirteen moons of a "complete year," that is, twelve moons plus one intercalary moon. uUlsda E
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festivity for both the Han and minority nationalities. The custom of worshipping the moon can be traced back as far as the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties (2000 B.C.-1066 B.C.). In the Zhou Dynasty(1066 B.C.-221 B.C.), people hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon whenever the Mid-Autumn Festival sets in. It becomes very prevalent in the Tang Dynasty(618-907 A.D.) that people enjoy and worship the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 A.D.), however, people send round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. When it becomes dark, they look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Since the Ming (1368-1644 A.D. ) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911A.D.), the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration becomes unprecedented popular. Together with the celebration there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. However, the custom of playing under the moon is not so popular as it used to be nowadays, but it is not less popular to enjoy the bright silver moon. Whenever the festival sets in, people will look up at the full silver moon, drinking wine to celebrate their happy life or thinking of their relatives and friends far from home, and extending all of their best wishes to them.
BEST WISH OF MIDDLE AUTOMN
1 Without you, the moon is round though my heart is empty.
没有你在我身边，天上月圆圆，我心却空落落。
2 East or west, home is best.
金窝，银窝不如自己的狗窝。
3 The moon cake is eaten away, but the sweetness remains.
月饼已吃，甜蜜犹存
4 Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
家是我们情之所系的地方，虽只身在外，但心系家园。
5 When we are together, even the moon in the sky will be jealousy.
如果我们在一起，天上的月亮也会嫉妒的。
6 My dear, can you hear my heart beating in the soft moonlight? I miss you so.
在月色廖人的夜里，我是如此的想念你，亲爱的你听到我的心跳了吗？
7 To have a moonlight walk with you tonight is my best dream.
今晚和你在月光中散步是我最大的梦想。
8 Still remember the happy time on Mid-autumn Festival when we were children? Best wishes for you!
还记得儿时我们共度的那个中秋吗？祝你节日快乐。
9 Would you like to go and admire the beauty of the moon with me tonight?
今晚能邀你一同赏月吗？
10 Wish you and yours a happy holiday on this gathering day.
在这团聚的日子里祝你全家节日快乐。
11.天上有个月，水中有个月，我这儿也有个月。Sky One, the water there, I also have here months. 为送礼！For gifts! 现将月饼放在水中，用月光返照原理速递过来。 Now the cakes on the water, with penetration of courier from the moonlight. 祝中秋节快乐，月圆人更圆！ I wish a happy Mid-Autumn Festival, one more round full moon!
The legend of the Mid-Autumn festival
Hou Yi was a great archer and architect, who shot down nine extra suns thathad suddenly appeared in the sky and thus kept the earth from being scorched. He also built a palace of jade for the Goddess of the Western Heaven. For this, he was rewarded with a pill containing the elixir of immortality, but with strings attached--he must fast and pray for a year before taking it. His wife, Chang E , whose beauty was surpassed only by her curiosity, discovered and swallowed the pill and in no time soared to the moon and became a permanent resident there. Upon reaching the moon, Chang E, in dismay, coughed up the pill, which turned into a jade rabbit that, day and night, pounds out a celestial elixir for the immortals.
Another permanent lunar resident of Chinese origin is Wu Kang , a shiftless fellow who changed apprenticeships all the time before disappointing his last master, who was an immortal. From him Wu learned to be immortal himself, but he was punished by being required to chop down a cassia tree in the moon, an impossible mission. The cut in the tree heals completely the same day, so Wu Kang is still chopping away for eternity. Some Chinese crave to drink his cassia blossom wine.
The Chinese believe that the moon is at its largest and brightest, and Chang E at her most beautiful, on the 15th night of the eighth lunar month. They are at least half-right, for at that time most of China is in the dry season and the moon looms brightest. It's also cool then, a perfect time to celebrate the harvest which has just concluded; hence, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the Harvest Festival. The festival is a time for family reunions to appreciate the moon and eat moon cakes together. Bathed in bright moonshine and with the company of chrysanthemum and cassia blossoms, poets eat crab meat and moon cake, drink tea and wine, and versify the night away.