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What day is mid autumn festival 2018? What are the customs of Mid Autumn Festival

Mid Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in China, and also a day for Chinese people to think about their hometown and get together. What day is the Mid Autumn Festival in 2018? What are the customs of Mid Autumn Festival? Let's have a look.

What day is the Mid Autumn Festival in 2018

The Mid Autumn Festival in 2018 is on Monday, September 24, 2018 in the Gregorian calendar and August 15 in the lunar calendar. The Mid Autumn Festival is the day to get together with your family. It's also the best time to have a meal with your family.

August 15 of the lunar calendar is the traditional Mid Autumn Festival. This is the mid autumn of a year, so it is called the Mid Autumn Festival. In Chinese lunar calendar, a year is divided into four seasons, and each season is divided into three parts: Meng, Zhong, and Ji. Therefore, mid autumn is also called mid autumn. The moon on August 15 is rounder and brighter than the full moon in other months, so it's also called "lunar Eve" and "August Festival". This night, people look up to the sky like a jade plate of the bright moon, naturally looking forward to family reunion. The wanderer who is far away from home also takes this opportunity to express his yearning for his hometown and relatives. Therefore, the Mid Autumn Festival is also called "reunion festival".

The Mid Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, the autumn festival, the Mid Autumn Festival, the August Festival, the August meeting, the moon chasing Festival, the moon playing Festival, the moon worship Festival, the daughter's day or the reunion festival, is on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. Because it is exactly half of the third Autumn Festival, it is called the Mid Autumn Festival. Some places also set the Mid Autumn Festival on the 16th day of August.

The mid autumn festival began in the early Tang Dynasty and prevailed in the Song Dynasty. By the time of Ming and Qing Dynasties, it had become one of the Chinese traditional festivals as famous as the Spring Festival. Influenced by Chinese culture, the Mid Autumn Festival is also a traditional festival for some countries in East and Southeast Asia, especially for the local overseas Chinese. Since 2008, the Mid Autumn Festival has been listed as a national legal holiday. On May 20, 2006, the State Council was listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

Since ancient times, the Mid Autumn Festival has the customs of offering sacrifices to the moon, appreciating the moon, worshiping the moon, eating moon cakes, appreciating osmanthus, drinking osmanthus wine and so on. It has been passed on for a long time. The Mid Autumn Festival symbolizes the reunion of people with the full moon. It is a cultural heritage with rich and colorful features. It is a place for people to miss their hometown and their relatives, and pray for a good harvest and happiness. The Mid Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Spring Festival and Qingming Festival are also known as the four traditional festivals in China.

What are the customs of Mid Autumn Festival

Generally eating moon cakes is the most representative, but there are also many traditional customs to do, such as watching lanterns, watching the moon, and most importantly, family members get together.

1. According to the records of Luozhong, Emperor Taizong ate mooncakes on the Mid Autumn Festival, and he felt it was delicious. So he ordered the imperial dining room to wrap the mooncakes in red silk and give them to the new scholars. This may be the earliest record of moon cakes that we can see. In the Song Dynasty, moon cakes were known as lotus leaf, golden flower, lotus and so on, and their production methods were more refined. Su Dongpo, a poet, praised the poem: "small cakes are like chewing the moon, in which there are crisp and Yi.". 'pastry is pastry, and caramel is sugar. Its taste is sweet, crisp and fragrant.

2. As early as in the old stories of Wulin in the Northern Song Dynasty, it was recorded that there was a "little red" light in the river to drift and play. In the Mid Autumn Festival, most of the lanterns are in the south. As mentioned above, there are all kinds of colorful lights in Foshan Autumn Festival: Sesame lamp, eggshell lamp, shaving lamp, straw lamp, fish scale lamp, chaff lamp, melon seed lamp, bird, animal, flower and tree lamp, etc., which are amazing.

3. In ancient times, there was a custom of "autumn evening and moon". The moon in the evening means worshiping the moon god. Set up a large incense table, and put moon cakes, watermelons, apples, dates, plums, grapes and other sacrifices, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable. Watermelon is also cut into lotus shape. Under the moon, put the moon god in the direction of the moon. The red candle burns high. The whole family worships the moon in turn, and then the housewife cuts the reunion moon cake. The cutter shall calculate in advance how many people there are in the whole family. Those who are at home and those who are out of town shall be counted together. They shall not cut too much or too little. They shall be the same size.

4. There are many lanterns hanging in public places on the full moon night of the Mid Autumn Festival. People gather together to guess the riddles written on the lanterns. Because they are the favorite activities of most young men and women, love stories also spread out in these activities. Therefore, guessing lantern riddles in the Mid Autumn Festival has also derived a form of love between men and women.

5. In the south, the game of burning tile lamp (or burning flower tower, burning tile tower, burning fan tower) is widely spread. For example, on the night of the Mid Autumn Festival in Jiangxi Province, children pick up tiles in the wild and pile them into a round tower with many holes. At dusk, it is burned in a wood tower under the bright moon. As soon as the tiles are red, then pour kerosene on them, and add fuel to the fire. All of a sudden, everything is red and shining like day.

6. Tide Watching: in ancient times, in addition to enjoying the moon in the Mid Autumn Festival in Zhejiang, tide watching is another mid autumn festival event. The custom of watching the tide in the Mid Autumn Festival has a long history, as early as in the Fu Qi Fa of Mei Cheng in Han Dynasty. After the Han Dynasty, the mid autumn tide is more popular. Zhu Tinghuan's supplement to the old stories of Wulin and song Wu's self-cultivation of Mengliang are also recorded.