What do you usually do on the Double Ninth Festival?

1. Sunbathing in autumn

The Double Ninth Festival is the best time to enjoy autumn, and some mountain villages in the south of China still retain the characteristics of "basking in autumn". Going to the countryside to appreciate the folk customs and watch the autumn sun has become a fashion in rural tourism. "Sunbathing in autumn" is a typical agricultural custom phenomenon with strong regional characteristics. Villagers living in mountainous areas such as Hunan, Guangxi, Anhui and Jiangxi. It has become a traditional agricultural custom to use the roof in front of the house and the window sill to hang crops. This special lifestyle and scene of villagers drying crops has gradually become the material pursued and created by painters and photographers, and created a poetic name "drying autumn".

climb mountains

The custom of climbing on the Double Ninth Festival has a long history. The custom of climbing mountains has four origins: first, the ancients worshipped mountains; Second, it comes from the climate of "clearing the air, raising the turbidity and sinking the gas"; Thirdly, it stems from the "resignation" of climbing; Fourth, it originated from an absurd legend in the attached meeting, "climbing mountains to avoid disasters."

3. ancestor worship

The Double Ninth Festival is one of the four traditional festivals of ancestor worship in China, and there is a tradition of ancestor worship and blessing in ancient times. With the development and evolution of history, the family concept and ancestor worship in many places are getting weaker and weaker. In ancient times, the traditional custom of ancestor worship on Double Ninth Festival was still popular in Lingnan area, and people held ancestor worship activities on Double Ninth Festival every year.

fly a kite

Flying kites is the main custom of celebrating the Double Ninth Festival in the south. The folk Double Ninth Festival is characterized by flying kites. Guangxu's "Huizhou Fuzhi" is also recorded. Paper kites are kites now. In the folk tradition, besides climbing mountains, flying kites is also a major feature of the Double Ninth Festival.

Appreciate chrysanthemums

The Double Ninth Festival has always had the custom of enjoying chrysanthemums, so it has been called Chrysanthemum Festival since ancient times. The custom of appreciating chrysanthemums originated from chrysanthemum culture. [ 13]? September of the lunar calendar, commonly known as Chrysanthemum Month, holds a chrysanthemum party on holidays, and people from all over the city go to the meeting to enjoy chrysanthemums. Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties in the Three Kingdoms, it has become fashionable for Chongyang parties to drink and enjoy chrysanthemums and recite poems. In the ancient customs of China, chrysanthemum symbolizes longevity.

Extended data

Legend of the origin of Double Ninth Festival

Like most traditional festivals, the Double Ninth Festival has ancient legends.

According to legend, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a plague demon in Ruhe. As soon as it appeared, people in every household fell ill and died every day, and people in this area were ravaged by plague demons.

A plague killed the parents of the teenager Hengjing, and he almost died of illness himself. After he recovered from his illness, he bid farewell to his beloved wife and fellow villagers and decided to go abroad to study fairy arts to rid the people of the plague. Heng Jing visited teachers everywhere and famous scholars all over the world. Finally, he found an oldest mountain in the east. There is a miraculous fairy on the mountain. Under the guidance of the crane, Hengjing finally found the mountain and the immortal with magical power. The immortal was moved by his spirit, and finally took in Heng Jing, taught him the sword to subdue the demon, and gave him a sword to subdue the demon.

Hengjing forgot to eat, sleep and practice hard, and finally became an extraordinary martial art. On this day, the immortal called Heng Jing to his side and said, "Tomorrow is the ninth day of September, and the plague god will come out to do evil again. When you learn the skill, you should go back and kill the people. " Xianchang gave Hengjing a pack of dogwood leaves and a cup of chrysanthemum wine, and secretly taught him how to ward off evil spirits and let Hengjing ride a crane home.

Hengjing returned to his hometown. On the morning of the ninth day of September, according to the fairy's instructions, he led the villagers to a nearby mountain and gave everyone a dogwood leaf and a cup of chrysanthemum wine to prepare for subduing the evil spirits. At noon, with several strange calls, Mo Wen rushed out of the Ruhe River, but just as Mo Wen jumped down the mountain, he suddenly smelled the strange fragrance of Cornus officinalis and the alcohol smell of Chrysanthemum, and his face suddenly changed. At this time, Heng Jing chased Mo Wen down the mountain with a demon sword in his hand, and stabbed him to death in a few rounds. Since then, the custom of climbing mountains on the ninth day of September to avoid epidemics has been handed down year after year. Wu Yun, a native of A Liang, recorded this point in his book Qi and He Xu.

Later, people regarded the custom of climbing on the Double Ninth Festival as an activity to avoid disasters. In addition, in the traditional concept of Central Plains people, the Double Ninth Festival still means longevity, health and longevity, so the Double Ninth Festival was later established as the festival for the elderly.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Double Ninth Festival