Semi-autumn celebrates

The Festival of the semi-autumn (or Festival of the semi-autumn ) (Chinese traditional: 中秋節; simplified Chinese: 中秋节; pinyin: Zhōngqiùjié; with the Vietnam: Tết Trung Thu; with the Japan: Tsukimi), is celebrated the evening of the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which is always a night of full the Moon, This day, the full moon is roundest and most luminous of the year, which symbolizes the unit of the family and the gathering. One agrees in general to see there the synthesis of an old lunar worship and an agricultural festival, celebration of harvests of the year accompanied by a feast. It is the birthday of the God of the Ground, the “divine civil servant” local, and the peasants benefit from it to request his benevolence for the year to come. The festival of the semi-autumn represents one of the two more important vacation of the Chinese Calendrier, the other being the Chinese lunar New Year's Day, or Chinese New year; it is bank holiday in many Asian countries.

Origin

Under the dynasty of Tang (618-901), Tujue, a national minority frequently attacked the northern border of China.

The Emperor Li Shimin sent the general Li Jing to the head of an army. After a few months of war, Li Jing succeeds in pushing back Tujues and restoring peace.

The finished military countryside, the general returned in Chang' year, the capital, or it arrived on August 15th of the lunar calendar. The Emperor made it accommodate in large pumps, like a hero, with the sound of the bells and drums.

In the honor of this victory and found peace, a merchant of Chang' year created for the Emperor a special of round form and coloured cake. The Emperor Li Shimin distributed it to his ministers and says to them that it had to be eaten to invite the moon. For this reason it is called " Cake of lune".

Since, the festival of the semi-autumn 中秋节 (zhongqiujie) is the occasion for the Chinese to eat moon cakes 月饼 (yue bing)… and perhaps also to remember the Emperor Li Shimin and the General Li Jing.

Under lunar clearness

The moon is for a long time the large high-speed motorboat of this festival which one also names festival of the moon . In many Chinese areas, one regards the Automne as the most beautiful season, rather dry and moderate, and the moon of the semi-autumn is famous being most beautiful. It is thus around it that are organized the festive activities, traditionally called shang yue 賞月 (contemplation of the moon) and zou yue 走月 (walk under the moon), which is concretized by a very popular night picnic. In the urban areas, the parks and the courses of the schools remain open for this purpose, and some do not hesitate to settle over the pavement with their material of barbecue. The children walk with enlightened lanterns. The farmers celebrate the harvest and the end of the agricultural season.

One consumes the famous cakes of the moon (yue bing 月餅) the traditional model contains a sweetened paste of bean S or Datte S often coating an egg yolk with duck salted which points out the moon (the sweeten-salted mixture is completely acceptable for a Chinese pastry making). Surface is decorated with reasons in relief in relation to the lunar legends or with Sinogramme S auspicieux, and more recently with characters prosaically indicating the contents of the cakes to facilitate the choice of the customers in front of their increasing diversity. The popular legend brings back the existence of a goddess named Chang' E 嫦娥, of a rabbit and an alive logger on the moon. The stores which sell moon cakes a little before the festival often show the image of the goddess Chang' E floating towards the moon.

With the moon cakes is dependant a historical anecdote: the tradition wants indeed that the signal of the revolt of the Chinese Han against the Mongolian dynasty Yuan which was going to bring the advent of the Ming was given by the means of messages hidden inside these pastry makings. Indeed, unlike the Chinese, the Mongols did not eat these cakes. The message hidden in the cakes was " Kill the barbarians the fifteen of the eighth mois" (八月十五殺韃子).

Female festival

Dependant on energy yin of the couple Yin-Yang, the the Moon is a female symbol. Documents mentioning the lunar antique worship claim that it was returned exclusively by the women. In addition, according to the tradition, the friendships are done and are demolished under the glance of the moon, and the marriages are arranged as of the birth by a mythical character called the old man under the moon (yuexialaoren 月下老人). All these factors are linked to make festival of the semi-autumn one evening favourable with the romantic companies. In the rural company of formerly, the young girls left in the obscure fields and kitchen gardens to tear off with tâton a vegetable seedling. Certain types, the Welsh onion (cong 蔥) for example, forecast matrimonial future particularly favorably. Romantic appointments nowadays replaced this habit, called “flight of vegetables” (touguacai 偷瓜菜).

Even the emperors do not escape the magic atmosphere from this festival. The legend wants that the emperor Tang Xuan-zong, whose life is rich in romantic anecdotes, heard this night of a terrace of his palate the marvellous music coming from the lunar palate which he memorized and made transcribe. It would be the origin of the piece “clothing of arc in sky and feather” (nishangyuyiqu 霓棠羽衣曲).

Other topics

The tradition taoist took again topics of the Chinese Mythologie ancient to create these two legends associated with the moon: “The escape of Exchange” (嫦娥奔月) and “Wugang cuts the cinnamon-tree” (吳剛砍桂).

The archer Houyi 后羿 had as a wife certain Heng-e 姮娥 (whose name was changed into Chang' E because of its homonymy with a name of emperor). He had entrusted to him an elixir of long life offered by Xiwangmu, which in the traditions taoists reigns on a ground of immortality located at the Occident. Not wanting to wait to have reached a advanced age to consume his share, like her husband advised to him, Chang-e absorbed the entirety of the amount and felt its body at once to start to float. Too much embarrassed by its control to go in the sky of immortal as envisaged, it was exiled on the moon where it is supposed since living in a palate of Jade named Guanghangong 廣寒宮. It was joined there by Wugang, an immortal apprentice exiled for its lack of determination and condemned to cut there a magic Cannelier which pushes back unceasingly.

Always in the line of the Taoism, on the moon a Lièvre Apothicaire often represented with his mortar would live. Very old traditions associate the moon with the Crapaud and hare.

Dates

  • 2005 : September 18th

  • 2006: October 6th
  • 2007: September 25th
  • 2008: September 14th
  • 2009: September 3rd
  • 2010: September 22nd
  • 2011: September 12th
  • 2012: September 30th
  • 2013: September 19th
  • 2014: September 8th
  • 2015: September 27th

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