What are the customs of Xiamen Mid-Autumn Festival? What are the traditional foods of Xiamen Mid-Autumn Festival?

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a very warm festival in China. When talking about the Mid-Autumn Festival, people always want to reunite with their families to enjoy the moon. This festival reflects the Chinese people’s concept of family, and because the Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Festival, so all parts of the country have similar customs and will also have their own unique characteristics. So what are the customs of Xiamen Mid-Autumn Festival? Xiamen’s traditional food during the Mid-Autumn Festival?

What are the customs of Xiamen Mid-Autumn Festival

Cake gambling

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, in addition to eating mooncakes and admiring the moon, the most popular thing among Xiamen people is of course It is the Mid-Autumn Festival cake gambling culture. Mid-Autumn Cake Betting has also been selected into the national intangible cultural heritage list, which shows its great influence.

The Mid-Autumn Festival cake betting originated in Xiamen. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Xiamen Island had the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake betting, and later spread to Longhai in Zhangzhou, Anhai in Quanzhou and other places.

It improved the Mid-Autumn mooncakes into a set of cakes made according to the imperial examination level, and combined the ancient game game "Dice Selection" with the rules of the Zhuangyuanchio game popular in Jiangnan in the mid-Ming Dynasty;

By rolling six dice, you can win the six rankings of number one, number two, top pick, Jinshi, Juren, and scholar, and get mooncakes of different sizes. The rules of the game are fair, simple, and interesting. Folk entertainment activities with the nature of competitive games.

Worshiping the moon and listening to incense

Xiamen people have always attached great importance to the Mid-Autumn Festival, and their customs have quite local characteristics, including worshiping the moon and listening to incense. In the minds of old Xiamen people, the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month is the Christmas of the Lunar Star Lord. They continue the ancient worship of celestial phenomena and worship the moon on this day. Those who have something on their mind will seek direction from the moon when it is high in the sky - this is called listening to incense.

Listening to incense can be done at home after worshiping the moon, or you can go to a public temple dedicated to the Yang God to ask for divination. Burn incense and pray, then throw the letter cup, and if you get the answer, you can listen to the incense.

Xiamen’s traditional Mid-Autumn Festival food

Steamed sweet potato and taro

In the old Xiamen saying, there is also a saying about August 15th, sweet potato and taro, which means, During the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th, people use freshly harvested sweet potatoes, taro, etc. to offer sacrifices to the gods.

Sweet potatoes and taro mature around the Mid-Autumn Festival and are seasonal ingredients. Golden sweet potatoes and white taro are regarded as wrapped in gold and silver by the people of southern Fujian. Eating them has the effect of protecting children and grandchildren.

In the Hokkien language, taro and protect are homophonic. Taro is often a taro that can produce a whole nest. People often say taro seeds and taro grandchildren are homophonic to the saying "protect children and protect grandchildren". These are the blessings of Tu Tu Gong, so we worship Tu Tu Gong on August 15th.

Eating mooncakes

When it comes to the Mid-Autumn Festival, what I have to say is eating mooncakes. In Xiamen, a wide variety of Mid-Autumn cakes were available on the market in the early years, including Chinese cakes, Cantonese cakes, crystal cakes, biscuit cakes, white cakes, pancakes, etc.

In the early 1930s, there were more than 70 businesses (with self-made capabilities) specializing in cakes and cakes in Xiamen, which were divided into Western cakes, cakes, biscuits, cakes, cake powder, sugar cakes, North Cake and other categories, Western cakes are commonly used for social tea gatherings, while gift cakes and wedding candies are used for weddings.

In the 1980s and 1990s, local well-established bakeries and star-rated hotels such as Gulangyu Hualian Qiaoli Huangze and Yousimai, as well as Lujiang Donghai Xiamen Hotel Fulian Yuehua, would launch colorful products in a timely manner. There are various styles of mooncakes, including Cantonese style, Chaozhou style, Soviet style and so on.