What's the difference between the modern Mid-Autumn Festival custom and the ancient one?

The ancient Mid-Autumn Festival custom

1, enjoy the moon

Mid-Autumn Festival, China has the custom of enjoying the moon since ancient times. There is a record of "autumn twilight and the moon" in the Book of Rites, that is, worshipping the moon god. In the Zhou Dynasty, every Mid-Autumn Festival night, activities to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon were held. Put a big incense table with seasonal fruits such as moon cakes, watermelons, apples, plums and grapes, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable. Watermelon must be cut into lotus shapes.

In the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was more lively. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival remains the same. Many places have formed special customs such as burning incense, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting tower lanterns, putting sky lanterns, walking on the moon and dancing dragons.

Step 2 steal vegetables

In ancient times, the custom of "being a thief" on Mid-Autumn Festival night was circulated in many places. When the bright moon is in the sky and the night is still, unmarried girls secretly go out. They crept and stole vegetables from other people's vegetable fields by moonlight.

According to legend, if she steals vegetables or onions from other gardens on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, it means that she will meet a prince charming in the future. There is a saying in Taiwan Province Province that "steal onions and marry a good husband; Stealing vegetables and marrying a good husband "refers to this custom.

Step 3 observe the tides

"Know the jade rabbit is very round, September has frost cold. Send a message to close the door and close the key, and the night tide stays in the moon. " This is the poem Watching the Tide on August 15th written by Su Shi, a great poet in the Song Dynasty. In addition to enjoying the moon, tide watching is another activity of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The custom of watching tide in Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history, which is described in detail in Mei Cheng's famous poem Qi Fa in Han Dynasty. After the Han Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival became more popular.

Step 4 eat moon cakes

China has the custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival. At first, moon cakes were used to worship the moon god. The word "moon cake" was first seen in Liang Lumeng by Wu in the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, it was just a cake-shaped food like Ling Hua cake. Later, people gradually combined the Mid-Autumn Festival with tasting moon cakes, which symbolized family reunion.

It has become the wish of people all over the world to show people's reunion with a full moon, to show people's eternal life with a round moon cake, to pin their thoughts on their relatives in their hometown and to pray for a bumper harvest and happiness. Moon cakes are also used as gifts to send to relatives and friends and to connect feelings.

Step 5 send moon cakes

The custom of sending moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival is particularly popular in modern times, and it became popular in the Ming Dynasty. Chongzhen's "Jiaxing County Records" said, "The fifteenth day is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the cakes are crescent-shaped, saying' moon cakes', which means reunion for those who have left"; The Journey to the West, Rucheng, Tian Ming, also has the same saying, "The Mid-Autumn Festival folks take moon cakes as a legacy and take the meaning of reunion."

How is the custom of sending moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival formed? It is said that it is because of the "moonwalk" activity. The so-called "enjoying the moon" means visiting relatives and friends and giving cakes, fresh fruits and other foods as gifts during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Step 6 light the lamp

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the sky is as clear as water and the moon is as bright as a mirror, which can be described as a beautiful scene. But people are not satisfied with this, so there is the custom of "burning lamps" to help the moon.

In Huguang area, it is customary to stack tiles on the tower and burn lights on it. In Jiangnan, there is a custom of making lanterns. In the modern Mid-Autumn Festival, the custom of burning lanterns is more popular.

7. Play a prostitute

In the Qing Dynasty, the court called the Moon Rabbit "Taiyin Jun", but the people called it "Jade Male Prostitute". Its appearance is a human with a rabbit mouth and rabbit ears. There are two long ears on the head and a three-petal rabbit mouth. Other places are no different from people. Big round eyes, triangular eyebrows, pale face, pink face, childish expression and a heroic inspiration, very cute.

In the folk customs around Beijing, the Mid-Autumn Festival sacrifice to male prostitutes reflects the alienation of people's worship of God. Since the Mid-Autumn Festival changed from a ritual to a folk festival, the colors of etiquette and customs have faded, and the nature of tourism and enjoyment has become more and more prominent. The custom played in The Male Prostitute can be said to be a strong evidence of this phenomenon.

8. Play with the Moon

Appreciating the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, now called appreciating the moon, is a pleasure for the ancients to suit both refined and popular tastes. In the form of playing with the moon, the rich build their own colorful buildings, the greedy send their own restaurants, the good tourists climb mountains or play in the water, there must be nuclear dishes and wine, the literati recite poems and write poems, and the vulgar tell the past and often stay up all night. In addition to the nobles and the people playing with the moon, there is also a kind of moon-watching.

Of course, when the ancients played with the moon, they didn't just enjoy it at noon, but often combined it with other natural scenery, such as the famous landscape-Lugou Xiaoyue and Santan silver moon, which is undoubtedly a good place for people to enjoy the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

9. Eat taro

Mid-Autumn Festival is a good time to harvest taro. In some places, families gather in the yard on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival and eat taro instead of moon cakes in the bright moonlight. People cook a large pot of taro with skin, first sacrifice their ancestors with taro, then sit around and cut taro, and then eat the cut taro. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "When the river is opposite to the mouth, you will eat taro."

There is another folk legend about this custom: 1279, the Mongolian army wiped out the Southern Song Dynasty and brutally ruled the Han people. In order not to forget the suffering of Hu people's rule, later generations regarded taro as the homonym of "Hu tou", whose shape is like a human head, which has been passed down from generation to generation and still exists today. There is a saying in Chaozhou County Records in the Qing Dynasty: "Playing the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, eating taro, is called skinning ghosts". Eating taro in Mid-Autumn Festival also means to ward off evil spirits and eliminate disasters, or not to believe in ghosts or evil spirits.

Nowadays, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, folk customs such as enjoying the moon, eating moon cakes and having a reunion dinner, dancing dragons and lighting tower lanterns are still popular, but the activities of offering sacrifices to the moon in Yue Bai have been replaced by large-scale and colorful mass activities to enjoy the moon.