What are the customs of Mid-Autumn Festival?

Mid-Autumn Festival is a very old custom in China. According to historical records, as early as the Zhou Dynasty, ancient emperors had the custom of offering sacrifices to the sun at the vernal equinox, to the earth at the summer solstice, to the moon at the autumnal equinox, and to heaven at the winter solstice. Its places of worship are called Ritan, Ditan, Yuetan and Tiantan. It is located in four directions: southeast and northwest. The Moon Altar in Beijing is the place where emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties offered sacrifices to the moon. The Book of Rites records: "The son of heaven is sunny in spring and autumn is in the evening. The DPRK, the evening of the moon. " The moon here refers to offering sacrifices to the moon at night. This custom is not only pursued by the imperial court and the upper nobility, but also gradually affects the people with the development of society.

Scholars admire the moon

The custom of enjoying the moon comes from offering sacrifices to the moon, and serious sacrifices have become relaxed pleasures. Folk Mid-Autumn Festival began in Wei and Jin Dynasties, but it did not become a habit. In the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Many poets wrote poems about the moon in their masterpieces. In the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival centered on appreciating the moon was formed and officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival. Different from the Tang people, the Song people appreciate the moon more because they feel hurt by things, and often compare human affairs with the lack of rain or shine. Even on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the bright moon can't hide the sadness of Song people. But for the Song people, there is another form of Mid-Autumn Festival, which is a secular and joyful festival: "Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, shops sold new wine, and you decorated pavilions, and people competed for restaurants to play with the moon, listening to songs for thousands of miles, and playing until dawn" (Tokyo Dream China). The Mid-Autumn Festival in the Song Dynasty was a sleepless night. The night market is open all night, and there are endless tourists playing with the moon.

Folk Yue Bai

According to legend, the ugly women in ancient Qi had no salt. When she was young, she was very devout to Yue Bai. When she grew up, she entered the palace with superior moral character, but she was not loved. Enjoy the moon on August 15,

Folk Yue Bai

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When Tianzi saw her in the moonlight, he thought she was outstanding in beauty, and later made her the queen, from which the Mid-Autumn Festival Yue Bai came. In the middle of the moon, Chang 'e is famous for its beauty, so Yue Bai, a young girl, wants to be "like Chang 'e and have a bright moon".

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the relationship of the times, the practical utilitarian factors in social life were prominent, and the secular flavor of Japan and China was rich. The lyrical and mythical literati tradition centered on "enjoying the moon" has weakened, and utilitarian worship, prayer and secular feelings and wishes constitute the main forms of Mid-Autumn Festival customs for ordinary people. Therefore, "folk Yue Bai" has become people's yearning for reunion, entertainment and happiness; Send love by the month. [ 1]

In ancient times, there was a custom of "autumn and dusk". The moon at night is to worship the moon god. Put a big incense table, with offerings such as moon cakes, watermelons, apples, red dates, plums and grapes, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable. Watermelon must be cut into lotus shapes. Under the moon, put the moon statue in the direction of the moon, and the red candle burns high. The whole family takes turns in Yue Bai, and then the housewife cuts the reunion moon cakes. Those who cut should calculate in advance how many people there are in the whole family, both at home and from other places. They should not be cut more or less, they should be the same size.

Moonlight horse

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the image of Luna changed greatly, from the Taoist Moon Palace with Chang 'e as the main image in the early days to the secular image of Moonlight Bodhisattva and Jade Rabbit. During this period, people presented moonlight paper painted with a moonlight bodhisattva, also called "moonlight horse". Yanjing Time by Fu Cha Deng Chong (1996). Records: "Riding a horse in the moonlight, with paper as its object, is painted on the Taiyin Star King, such as the Buddha statue, painted on the Moon Palace, and rabbits use medicine. People stand up and hold the pestle, the algae are exquisite and resplendent, and they sell much in the market. Seven or eight feet old and two or three feet short, with two flags on the top, red, green, basket and yellow, all dedicated to the moon. Burn incense and salute, and burn thousands of ingots. "

Rabbit-headed clay figurine

Male prostitutes originated in the late Ming Dynasty. Amin Jikun (born around 1636) wrote in "The Legacy of Kaoting": "The Mid-Autumn Festival in Beijing is mostly in the shape of a mud rabbit, posing as a human being, and is worshipped by children." By the Qing dynasty, the function of male prostitutes had changed from offering sacrifices to the moon to children's Mid-Autumn Festival toys. It is becoming more and more exquisite, some dressed as military commanders in armor robes, some with paper flags or umbrellas on their backs, or sitting or standing. Sit down, there are Kirin, tiger leopard and so on. There are also vendors dressed as rabbit heads, or shaving masters, or sewing shoes, selling wonton and tea soup.

"Every Mid-Autumn Festival, smart people in the city make a toad and rabbit statue out of loess to sell, called a prostitute." In the old society, there were often male prostitutes' stalls around Dongsipailou, selling male prostitutes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. In addition, Nanzhi Store and incense sticks are also available for sale. This male prostitute has been personalized through the bold creation of folk artists. That's a rabbit's head with a jade pestle. Later, some people shaped male prostitutes into warriors wearing golden helmets and shining armor, some riding animals such as lions and elephants, and some riding birds such as peacocks and cranes. It is a strange thing for male prostitutes to ride a tiger, but it is a bold creation of folk artists. There is also a male prostitute whose elbows and jaws can move, commonly known as "scratching", which is more pleasing. Although it is provided by Yue Bai, it is really a wonderful toy for children.

On the streets of Beijing decades ago, old Beijing, who was over 60 years old, can still remember it. After July 15, the stall of male prostitutes was put out. There are male prostitute stalls everywhere, big and small, high and low, and they are very lively.

Mid-Autumn Festival banquet custom

In ancient times, the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet custom of Han people was the most elegant in the court. For example, eating crabs was very popular in the court of the Ming Dynasty. After steaming the crabs with cattail, everyone sat around and tasted them, served with wine and vinegar. Drink Su Ye Tang after eating and wash your hands with it. The banquet table was filled with flowers, pomegranates and other fashionable things, and the Mid-Autumn Festival drama was staged. In the Qing Palace, a courtyard placed a screen to the east, with cockscomb flowers, soybean crafts, taro, peanuts, radishes and fresh lotus roots on both sides of the screen. There is a square table in front of the screen, with an extra-large moon cake on it, surrounded by cakes and fruits. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes are cut into several pieces according to the royal population, and each person symbolically tastes them, which is called "eating reunion cakes". The size of moon cakes in Qing Palace is unimaginable. For example, the moon cake given by the last emperor Puyi to Ying Shao, Minister of the Interior, was "about two feet in diameter and weighed about twenty pounds".

Play with lanterns

There are many games in Mid-Autumn Festival, the first is playing lanterns. Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the three major Lantern Festival in China, so we should play with lanterns in festivals. Of course, the Mid-Autumn Festival does not have such a large lantern festival, and playing with lanterns is mainly between families and children.

Festival lanterns (displayed on the Lantern Festival)

As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, it was recorded in Old Wulin that the Mid-Autumn Festival was a custom, and there was an activity of "putting a small red light into the river to drift and play". Lantern playing in Mid-Autumn Festival is mostly concentrated in the south. For example, the autumn festival in Foshan mentioned earlier has all kinds of colorful lights: sesame lights, eggshell lights, wood shavings lights, straw lights, fish scales lights, chaff lights, melon seeds lights, birds, animals, flowers and trees lights, which are amazing.

In Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other places, Mid-Autumn Festival activities will be held on Mid-Autumn Festival night, and trees will be erected, which means that lanterns will be erected high. With the help of their parents, children make rabbit lanterns, carambola lanterns or square lanterns out of bamboo paper, hang them horizontally on short poles and then stand on high poles. They are high-tech and colorful, adding another scenery to the Mid-Autumn Festival. Children often compete with each other to see who stands tall, much taller and has the most exquisite lighting. In addition, there are sky lanterns, that is, Kongming lanterns, which are made of paper and tied into large lanterns. Burning candles under the lamp, the hot air rises, making the lamp fly in the air, making people laugh and chase. In addition, there are children carrying all kinds of lanterns to enjoy in the lower reaches of the moon.

In Nanning, Guangxi, in addition to all kinds of lanterns tied with paper and bamboo for children to play with, there are also simple grapefruit lanterns, pumpkin lanterns and orange lanterns. The so-called grapefruit lamp is to empty the grapefruit, carve a simple pattern, put on a rope and light a candle inside, which is very elegant. Pumpkin lanterns and orange lanterns are also made by removing pulp. Although simple, it is easy to make and very popular. Some children also put grapefruit lights into the pool water to play games.

There is a simple autumn lantern in Guangxi, which is made of six bamboo sticks, pasted with white gauze paper and inserted with candles. Hanging on the platform for offering sacrifices to the moon or for children to play with.

Now, in many areas of Guangxi and Guangdong, the Lantern Festival is arranged on the Mid-Autumn Festival night, large modern lanterns illuminated by electric lights are made, and new lanterns made of various plastics are used for children to play, but the simplicity of the old lanterns is gone.

In addition, the game of burning tile lamp (or burning flower tower, burning tile tower and burning fan tower) is widely circulated in the south, and it is circulated in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places. For example, Volume 5 of China Folk Customs: "On the Mid-Autumn Festival night in Jiangxi, children usually pick up tiles in the wild and pile them into round towers with holes. At dusk, it is burned in the firewood tower under the bright moon. As soon as the tiles burned red, kerosene was poured on the fire, and suddenly the fields were red and bright as day. It was not until late at night, when no one was watching, that it began to pour interest. This is the famous tile-burning lamp. " The tile-burning tower in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province is also a hollow tower made of bricks, which is filled with branches and burned to ashes. At the same time, it also burns smoke piles, that is, piles of grass and firewood burned after the end of Yue Bai. The fan-burning pagoda in the border area of Guangxi is similar to this kind of activity, but the folklore is to commemorate the heroic battle of Liu Yongfu, a famous anti-French fighter in Qing Dynasty, and burn the ghost (French invader) who escaped into the pagoda to death, which is quite patriotic. There is also a "tower burning boy" activity in Jinjiang, Fujian.

Legend has it that this custom is related to the righteous act of resisting the Yuan soldiers. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, the Han people were subjected to bloody rule, so the Han people made unyielding resistance, held meetings in various places to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and lit trumpets on the top floor of the pagoda. Similar to the fire on the platform at the top of the mountain, although this resistance was suppressed, the custom of burning pagodas remained. This legend is similar to the legend of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

dragon dance

dragon dance

Dragon dancing is the most traditional custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong. From the evening of the 14th August of the lunar calendar every year, a grand dragon dance has been held in the Tai Hang area of Causeway Bay for three consecutive nights. This fire dragon is more than 70 meters long, and it is tied into 32 dragon bodies with pearl grass, which is full of longevity incense. On the night of the grand event, the streets and alleys in this area are very lively, and the winding dragon dances with joy under the light and dragon and drum music.

There is also a legend about the origin of Hong Kong Mid-Autumn Festival dancing dragon: a long time ago, after the typhoon hit Tai Hang District, a python appeared and did evil everywhere. The villagers searched everywhere and finally killed it. Unexpectedly, the python disappeared the next day. A few days later, a plague broke out in the pit. At this time, the elders in the village suddenly got a dream from the Bodhisattva, saying that as long as they jumped the fire dragon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, they could drive away the plague. Coincidentally, it did work. Since then, the dragon dance has been passed down to this day.

No matter how superstitious this legend is, China is the hometown of dragons, and it has been 100 years since the Mid-Autumn Festival in Taihang Mountain, which is worth cherishing. At present, the dragon dance activities in Dakeng District are quite large, including head coach, coach, general commander and conductor, security team and so on. More than 30,000 people take turns dancing dragons.

Minority customs

The custom of offering sacrifices to the moon and Yue Bai is also popular among ethnic minorities. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dai people in Yunnan are popular with the custom of "Yue Bai". According to Dai's legend, the moon was changed by the emperor's third son. In short, he is a brave and strong young man. He led the Dai people to defeat the enemy and won the love of the Dai people. Later, after his unfortunate death, he became the moon, rose to the sky, and continued to emit soft moonlight, bringing light to the Dai people in the dark. In the Mid-Autumn Festival, young people go to the mountains early in the morning with gunpowder guns to shoot fire finches and pheasants to hunt holiday game. Girls and daughters-in-law are busy catching fish in the lake pond. They are all busy preparing holiday dinner. The old lady is busy frying glutinous rice and cooking different sizes of food. Put a glutinous rice round cake on each corner of the four tables, and insert a wick of Leng Xiang into each cake. As soon as the moon rises above the mountains, Leng Xiang will be lit, and the whole family will begin to "Yue Bai". Then, put a gunpowder gun in the air to show respect for the hero's rock tip. Finally, the family happily sat around the small square table, enjoying delicious food and enjoying the moon.

When the Oroqen people sacrifice to the moon, they put a basin of clear water in the open space, and then kneel in front of the basin and bow to the moon; The Tu people filled the basin with clear water and put the reflection of the moon in the basin. Then, people kept hitting the moon in the basin with pebbles, commonly known as "hitting the moon".

The activity of "offering sacrifices to the moon and asking god" of Zhuang nationality in western Guangxi is more typical. Every year in the middle of August in the summer calendar, some are on the Mid-Autumn Festival night. People set up an altar in the open air at the end of the village to offer sacrifices and incense burners. On the right side of the table, a branch or bamboo branch about a foot high symbolizes the community tree and is also a ladder for the moon god to descend to earth. There are ancient moon myth factors preserved here. The whole activity is divided into: inviting the moon god to descend to earth, with one or two women as the spokespersons of the moon god; God and man sing to each other; Luna divination fortune-telling; Singers sing mantras and send the moon god back to heaven in four stages.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Mongolian "Chasing the Moon". On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, Mongolians like to play the game of "Chasing the Moon". People are riding horses and galloping on the grassland in the silver moonlight. They galloped west, and the moon rose in the east and set in the west. Persistent Mongolian riders, until the moon goes down, "chasing the moon" is more than that. Tibetans "seek the moon". The custom of Tibetan compatriots in some parts of Tibet to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival is "searching for the moon". That night, young men, women and dolls, along the river, followed the bright moon reflected in the water, took pictures of the moon shadows in the surrounding ponds, and then went home to eat moon cakes.

Hezhe people "Yue Bai". During the Mid-Autumn Festival, people pick grapes and offer sacrifices to the moon in Hezhe settlement in northeast China. According to legend, it is to commemorate a clever and hardworking Hezhe daughter-in-law. She couldn't stand her mother-in-law's abuse and ran to the river to ask the moon for help. Finally ran to the moon.

De 'ang people "string the moon". Young men and women of De 'ang nationality in Luxi, Yunnan Province, the Mid-Autumn Festival is bright and the mountains are blocked. From time to time, melodious cucurbit silk is heard, and young men and women "string the moon" together to pour out their hearts. Some also set an engagement through "string of moons", sending betel nuts and tea.

Assisi people "jump on the moon". The traditional custom of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival is to "jump on the moon". On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, people from various villages gather in the open space of the mountain village. The girl in gauze jumped up, and so did the big three-stringed boy. However, what is particularly provocative is the duet of young men and women expressing their love, as if the moon was moved by Li.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Miao people bathed in moonlight, played melodious lusheng and danced with them. In the "Moon Festival" activities, young people look for suitable people and confess to each other, just like the moon and clear water. Their hearts are pure and bright, and they will never leave for a hundred years.

Gaoshan people "enjoy the moon" The Gaoshan compatriots who live in the mountainous areas of Taiwan Province Province wear national costumes, sit around singing and dancing, drink and enjoy the moon, and share the happiness of family.

mooncake

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival in Dong nationality township of Hunan province, an interesting custom "stealing moon dishes" is popular. According to legend, in ancient times, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, fairies in the Moon Palace came to the underworld, and they spilled nectar all over the world. Fairy nectar is selfless, so people can enjoy fruits and vegetables sprinkled with nectar together on this night.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, Dong girls use umbrellas to pick melons and vegetables from their beloved garden, which is not considered as "stealing". They also deliberately shouted: "Hey! I stripped all your fruits and vegetables. Come to my house to eat camellia oleifera! " It turns out that they passed the red line with the help of the Moon Palace Fairy. If you can pick a melon and fruit, it means that they can have a happy love. So the beans that grow in pairs become the objects of their picking. Sister-in-law also went to other gardens to "steal moon dishes" that night, but they hoped to get the fattest melon or a handful of fresh green edamame, because it symbolized the child's fatness and the health of the hairy head (the homonym of edamame refers to the child). Boys also have the custom of "stealing moon dishes" because they also want the moon fairy to give them happiness. However, they can only cook and eat in the wild and can't take them home. Stealing Moon Dishes adds infinite joy and magical brilliance to the Mid-Autumn Festival night in Dong Village.

Burning pagoda lamp

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was a folk custom of burning lanterns on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns are different from Lantern Festival lanterns. Pagoda lights are lit on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, which is mainly popular in the south. Pagoda lamp is that the children in the village pick up rubble and build a pagoda-shaped lamp. In the Qing Dynasty, villagers in Suzhou used tiles to build a seven-level pagoda in the wild. In the middle of the tower is the Tibetan king, surrounded by lights, which are called "tower lights". Guangzhou children burn "Fanta lamps" and exchange them with broken tiles; There is also a pomelo peel lamp, carved with red pomelo peel, with a glass lamp in the middle, glowing red.

Throw handkerchiefs to attract relatives

In some areas of Shandong Province, there is a custom of throwing handkerchiefs on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival to attract relatives. That night, colorful platforms were set up in the square, decorated in the shape of the Moon Palace, and jade rabbits and osmanthus trees were also set up. Some unmarried girls dress up as Chang 'e. After celebrating the song and dance, the girls threw handkerchiefs embroidered with different colors at the audience. If the handkerchief received by the audience is the same color as the handkerchief in Chang 'e's hand, they can go on stage to receive the prize. When some unmarried boys return handkerchiefs, Chang 'e can give them rings if she likes them. From then on, the two sides can be friends, and all's well that ends well.

Steal vegetables and beg for lang.

In Taiwan Province Province, unmarried women have the custom of "stealing vegetables to beg for husbands" on the Mid-Autumn Festival night. The beautifully decorated woman stepped on the moonlight and stole onions and vegetables from other people's gardens. After stealing them, it indicates that she will meet the only thrill. Therefore, Taiwan Province Province has "stealing onions and marrying a good husband; The proverb "steal vegetables and marry a good husband".

Stealing melons and praying for children

In Hengyang, Hunan Province, there is a saying, "On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, melons are delivered". Feng lived in his original place, married a woman who had been infertile for many years, and relatives and friends entrusted people to send melons. A few days ago, he stole a melon in the garden, so that the owner didn't know it, and painted it with color. His clothes were wrapped around it and he became a human figure. Give people who are good at it a long life, "beating gongs and firecrackers and sending them to their homes." Older people put wax gourd on the bed and watch the sun under the crack of the door. As you sow, you reap. Those who suffer from melons hold a grand banquet to entertain them, if it happens again. When a woman gets a melon, she will cut it off. As the saying goes, stories are the best. " In Hengyang, whoever is married and has no children in the village, "as long as the popularity is good, someone in the village will give them a gift."

In other parts of Hunan, there is also the custom of sending melons to children. Similar to Hengyang, on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, while the master is not at home to enjoy the moon, good neighbors secretly send their children for him. The person who sends the child must be someone who already has a child. They first selected the worst melon garden in the village, stole a big melon from the garden, drew a doll's face on the melon, inserted a five-inch long bamboo tube into the belly of the melon, and filled it with water along the bamboo tube until it was full. The sender hid the wax gourd in the master's bed, waited for the master to go back to his room to sleep, and pulled the quilt with his hand. When the wax gourd doll moves, water will flow out along the bamboo tube, just like a child wetting the bed. People who throw melons curse when they get up early in the morning. It is said that the more fierce the curse, the stronger the dolls will be in the future. If you have a baby in the second year, you should worship the giver "michel platini" and "dopted mother".

In Guizhou, there is also the custom of stealing melons and giving them away. When you steal melons at night, you deliberately let the stolen people know, so that you can get a scolding. The uglier the curse, the better. After the melon is stolen, you should dress it, draw eyebrows, pretend to be a child, beat gongs and drums, carry it with bamboo tools, and send it to a childless family. The person who receives the melon must invite the person who sends the melon to eat a moon cake, then sleep with the melon for one night and cook it the next morning, thinking that they can get pregnant from now on.

In Shexian County, Anhui Province, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, adults let children's melons or mother-in-law taro brought by their mothers be put into the quilts of newlyweds, making the mattresses extremely dirty. In this way, the sender is represented. There is a poem that goes like this: "Mid-Autumn Festival presents children, talks beautifully, and melons, diced taro and taro are always suitable for men." Innocent people cherish HongLing's quilt the most. It's a shame to drag mud with water. "

Mid-Autumn Festival cake

In Xiamen, Fujian, whenever the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches and the night is hazy,

You can hear the melodious jingle of dice hitting the porcelain bowl in the streets and alleys. The "Bo Cake" in Xiamen is also called "Bo Mid-Autumn Cake" and "Expo Cake". The formation of this custom is related to the national hero Zheng Chenggong. It is said that Zheng Chenggong was stationed in Xiamen more than 300 years ago. Every August, at the full moon of 15, soldiers full of anti-Qing and heroic spirit will inevitably miss home. In order to alleviate the soldiers' yearning for their relatives in their hometown during the festival, Hong Xu, a subordinate of Zheng Chenggong, invented a cake sharing game to let the soldiers enjoy moon cakes. Zheng Chenggong personally approved that from the lunar calendar 13 to 18, the army will watch moon cakes in turn on the basis of single and double days, for a total of six nights. This unique game gradually spread and improved among the people and became an interesting folk activity. In the early years, Bo Zhuangyuan cakes were mostly paid by relatives and friends or sworn brothers and sisters. They bought one or two moon cakes and shared them. Whoever wins the "first prize" will give everyone a gift in the Mid-Autumn Festival next year. Some of them have boys to send to two meetings. In this way, the number of cakes is increasing year by year, and we have to separate two independent groups. Generally, the family is presided over by the elders, and once or twice a year, the whole family forms a circle to blog.

Hakka custom

Hakka people's custom of eating moon cakes and enjoying the moon in Mid-Autumn Festival is roughly the same as that in other parts of the country. Hakkas call August Festival or August and a half.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival when the moon is full, Hakkas will put moon cakes, peanuts, grapefruit and other fruits in the yard, on the balcony, or where the moon rises in front of their houses to prepare for the "Yue Bai" activities.

After the worship, the whole family enjoyed the moon together and ate out. Watching the moon is an adult's business. Children generally don't just sit there and enjoy the moon, but chase and play in the bright moonlight. This is their paradise. And the food is a little particular. Parents often let everyone eat these sacrifices to the moon god first. In China's sacrificial culture, there is a tradition that after the gods enjoy it, the sacrifices are often divided, thus ending the whole sacrificial ceremony. In the process of sharing food, on the one hand, we accepted the blessing of the moon god, on the other hand, we also fulfilled the traditional sacrificial culture. Meixian people say that eating these sacrifices is more "good" and blessed, and it will be more auspicious.

In Meizhou, in addition to the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival food with universal significance, pomelo is an essential holiday food, and its varieties include golden pomelo (Shatian pomelo), honey pomelo or crystal pomelo. And eating grapefruit also has certain significance. "Like cutting grapefruit is called' killing grapefruit', which means exorcism. Some people also say that peeling grapefruit skin is' peeling ghost skin', which reflects the desire to exorcise evil spirits and eliminate disasters. "

In addition to ordinary moon cakes, there are "five-kernel moon cakes" in Hakka areas, and there is also a round cake made of glutinous rice flour and sugar. Although the social economy continues to progress, Hakka people have been inheriting the traditional food culture and developing the folk food culture, while the heritage of the Central Plains remains unchanged.

Sacrifice the moon and burn incense

The customs of Mid-Autumn Festival in Shanghai include offering sacrifices to the moon and burning incense. When the moon is sacrificed, when the moon rises, an open-air case is set up, which contains moon cakes, melons and fruits, edamame, taro, lotus roots and other foods, as well as a map of the Jade Rabbit Moon Palace. In ancient times, the moon belonged to Yin. In Yue Bai, women worship first, and men worship later. Some people say that "men are not Yue Bai". After Yue Bai, the family had a reunion dinner and a monthly meal. When a woman goes back to her mother's house to stay temporarily, she must go back to her husband's house on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, because this is because of the reunion festival. Traveling on Mid-Autumn Festival night to enjoy the moon, Shanghainese call it "walking on the moon". A night outing with women is called "stepping on the moon". Lujiashi Bridge outside Xiaodongmen, Shanghai, the reflection of the bright moon rippling in the water under the bridge forms a wonderful contrast with the bright moon in the sky. Therefore, tourists are weaving in the Mid-Autumn Festival night, scrambling to watch. This "Liang Shi jathyapple" is very famous in Shanghai, and it is called one of the "Eight Scenes of Shanghai".

There is also the custom of burning incense and fighting among the people in Shanghai. The so-called fragrant barrel, also called fragrant barrel, is made by a shop that binds and binds paper. It is square, big and small, and the big one is about two feet wide in a week. Candles are wrapped in tulle silk, painted with pictures of pavilions and pavilions of the Moon Palace, and some of them are woven with thread incense, and decorated with paper-bound Longmen Kuixing and colorful flags. In Shanghai, the scene of burning incense and closing the door in the Mid-Autumn Festival is the most prosperous in Nanyuan. In addition, the piers of many bridges inside and outside the city are lit with special large incense barrels.

Beg for the moon, shine on it and climb it.

In the old society, some women in Dongguan believed that "Yue Lao was the matchmaker". Anyone who has adult men and women at home but no Mr. Right can burn incense and light candles under the moon on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, and ask the old man to fix him up. According to legend, the quiet moonlight on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival can make women pregnant. In some areas, on the Mid-Autumn Festival moonlit night, some infertile women who have been married for a long time will go out to bathe in the moonlight, hoping to have children early, which is called "depending on the moon".

Take the moon and the third bridge for example.

Wu has the custom of walking the three bridges on the moon, that is, traveling in the moonlight, at least three bridges must be crossed (see Jia Qinglu, Volume 8). Shanghai also has this custom (see Yu Yousheng's Travel Notes on Metallurgy in the Seas). The so-called three bridges are obviously the flavor of the city.