Chinese Festival: Mid-autumn Festival (Moon Festival)

Mid Autumn Festival (Moon Festival) is one of Chinese traditional festivals, which happens at the the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month every year. There are a number of legends and traditions about Moon Festival. Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese New Year, Qing ming festival and Dragon Boat Festival are known as four main Chinese traditional festivals.

Origin of Mid-Autumn Festival
Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as “Zhong Qiu Jie” and “Tuan Yuan Jie”, is the second largest traditonal festival coming after the Chinese New Year. Mid-Autumn Festival began from the Song Dynasty, and has become one of China’s major festivals since Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Custom of Mid-Autumn Festival

1) Enjoy full moon
The custom originates in moon-worshiping, and became popular in Tang Dynasty. Until the Song Dynasty, enjoying full moon has been a fixed activity and this folk activity was officially designated as Mid-Autumn Festival.

2) Worship moon
Moon-worshiping is an ancient custome. Set a large incense table, put the moon cake, watermelon, apples, jujubes, plums and grapes on the table, place the moon statue towards the moon, and the whole family worship the moon one by one. Then the wife carve the moon cake into several pieces with the same size for the whole family member and those who are out of home are not exceptional.

3) Eat crab and mooncake
Mid-Autumn Festival banquet was used to be very generous especially in the royal family, such as eating crabs. The moon cake is indispensable in Mid-Autumn Festival, which has grown up to two-feet-diameter and 10-kilo-weight in the Qing Palace.

4) Play lantern
Mid-Autumn Festival is one of Chinese three Lantern Festivals. Of course, the Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival is not as large as the Lantern Festival, and lantern playing happens only inside the family.

5) The fire dragon dance
Fire Dragon Dance is the feature of Hong Kong Festival Moon Cakes’ traditional customs. From the evening of lunar August 14, there will be a three-night grand fire dragon dance in Causeway Bay area. The fire dragon is more than 70 meters long, with 32 body section bounded together with pearl grass and filled with longevity incense.


Source : http://www.easyseosolution.com/blog/chinese-festival/moon-festival