One of the traditional festivals throughout China that is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, is the Mid Autumn Festival. A celebration, calm, elegant and essentially nocturnal. Ultimately, it is a kind of celebration that brings the family together in an intimate setting.
This celebration, also called moon FestivalIt is a kind of thanksgiving where the gifts of nature and the benefits of the arduous annual day in the field are reflected on and admired.
The festival continues to be a rich and colorful motif, with many activities and treats, including lanterns, dragon dances, and incense burning in various parts of the country, all under the brightest Full Moon at this time of year.
China also takes the opportunity to remember a legend associated with lunar celebrations. It is said that in ancient times 10 suns shone in the sky, burning the land and crops. To save the world from misery, an archer named Hou Yi shot down nine of the suns.
Chang'e Hou Yi, the wife was a beautiful and kind woman. One day, Hou Yi received an elixir of life from the sky goddess, and when she returned home, she hid in a closet. But the villain Peng Meng saw everything and when Hou Yi went hunting, sword in hand, Peng Chang'e forced to give him the elixir.
Knowing that she could not defeat him, Chang'e swallowed the elixir and began to float in the sky. She settled on the Moon, the closest place where she could see her husband on earth. Since then, the custom of worshiping the moon during mid-autumn has continued.
A popular tradition is also to eat moon cakes, which are usually round, and similar to western fruitcakes. There are countless varieties of mooncakes, but typical filling includes walnuts, lotus seed paste, bean paste, Chinese dates, almonds, minced meat, or melon seeds.
Although customs and practices vary across the country, almost everyone has the opportunity to show their love for their family and pray for a better life during the Mid-Autumn Festival where the Chinese regard the full moon as a symbol of the Family junction.