Mid-autumn festival composition

On the composition materials of Mid-Autumn Festival

August 15 is the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival in China, and all activities revolve around the theme of the moon. Eat moon cakes, Yue Bai, for male prostitutes, etc. The moon was widely worshipped in Han Dynasty. Ancient emperors offered sacrifices to the sun and the moon. The moon altar in Beijing is a building dedicated to the moon. Mid-Autumn Festival is the most comfortable season of the year. The symbolic food of Mid-Autumn Festival is moon cakes. Mooncakes also symbolize family reunion. This sign has been in existence since the Ming Dynasty.

Mid-Autumn Festival is also popular among more than 20 ethnic minorities such as Mongolian, Hui, Zhuang, Yi, North Korea and Dong.

Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the four traditional festivals in China: Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Searching for the roots of traditional festival culture has certain enlightenment significance for inheriting the excellent tradition of Chinese culture, building a harmonious society and even creating a healthy holiday market atmosphere.

Mid-Autumn Festival became a "big festival" in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Mid-Autumn Festival is also called "Mid-Autumn Lantern".

The fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month is in the middle of autumn, so it is called the Mid-Autumn Festival. It's night and the moon is round and bright. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, in Niuzhu (now Caishiji), which Nanjing belongs to, Gao Shi Xie Shang and Justin went boating on the river to enjoy the moon on the Mid-Autumn Festival night, so there was a story of "Niuzhu playing the moon", which had a great influence on the formation of the Mid-Autumn Festival to enjoy the moon. In the Song Dynasty, August 15 was officially designated as the Mid-Autumn Festival. From the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the Republic of China, Mid-Autumn Festival became a grand festival. After liberation, Mid-Autumn Festival is still popular among the people, such as enjoying the moon, eating moon cakes and having a reunion dinner.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is also popular among Mongolian, Hui, Yi, Zhuang, Buyi, North Korea, Manchu, Bai, Dong, Tujia, Hani, Li, Lahu, Naxi, Daur, Qiang, Xibe, Ewenki, Yugur, Beijing, Oroqen, Hezhe and other ethnic groups.

"Cultural Code" of Food

Moon cake is the first food in Mid-Autumn Festival, and there are different opinions about its origin. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhang Shicheng (or Liu Bowen, the counselor of Zhu Yuanzhang), the leader of the anti-Yuan uprising in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, used the Mid-Autumn Festival people to give each other round cakes, which contained a note saying "Kill Tatar on the night of August 15th". Everyone saw the note in the cake, and as expected, the "Tatar" (Yuan Bing), who had done evil together that night, was widely circulated, and then everyone ate the cake together to celebrate the victory of the uprising. In a long historical period, even at the end of the last century, many moon cakes were still affixed with a small note! Unfortunately, the moon cakes produced in recent years have disappeared, and the "cultural code" passed down from generation to generation in moon cakes has also disappeared. There is also a saying that in the early years of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, General Xu Da captured Beijing, the capital occupied by the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, and the good news spread to Nanjing, the capital. Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Taizu who was playing chess, was ecstatic, that is, he announced that the Mid-Autumn Festival would be celebrated all over the world and rewarded his subjects with moon cakes that conveyed information during the anti-Yuan uprising. Since then, moon cakes have become the "legal" food of Mid-Autumn Festival, and they must be eaten.

During the Republic of China, the moon cake market in Nanjing was a "three-point world" with Guangdong style, Soviet style and local style. Cantonese fillings are mainly ham, jujube paste and coconut paste, with Guanshengyuan as the leading manufacturer, followed by Dasanyuan and Kangleyuan. They used massive advertising as a means to publish huge advertisements in newspapers and decorate neon lights in windows. The famous Suzhou-Hong Kong manufacturers include Xiao Suzhou, Taiping Village and Daoxiang Village. The advertising production has the characteristics of Shanghai style and likes to engage in gimmicks. The quality of Soviet-style moon cakes is not worse than that of Guangbang, but the price is cheaper. Therefore, after the holiday, financial resources are better than Guangbang. Guangbang's customers are dignitaries and businessmen; Su Gang's customers are mostly well-off families; The general public is happy to join this gang. Although its fillings are only two kinds of meat, five kernels and plain salt and pepper, more than 100 dim sum shops in the city are old brands. They don't decorate the window, let alone advertise, but they all win customers by quality, honesty and low price, and their market share is worse than that of Guangbang and Su Bang.

There is also a unique "Jinling set of cakes" in this group of moon cakes. Moon cakes of different sizes are stacked on top of each other, and the top is decorated with a birthday peach, which looks like a pagoda and is sold in sets. When Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the interim president, he fell in love with the set of cakes presented to him by Yongmao Food Store in Zhonghua Gate. There is a wonderful flower in this group of moon cakes-"Laiyue Moon Cake". According to legend, Emperor Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River and stayed at Guabu Temple in Liuhe. It was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the abbot and monk Lai Yue led his disciples to elaborate ancestral moon cakes for worship. It was named "Lai Yue Moon Cake" and listed as a tribute of the imperial court to show merit. 1984 "Laiyue Mooncake" won the second place in the mooncake appraisal of Jiangsu Supply and Marketing Cooperative System, and was also exported to Hong Kong and Macao.

Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with the harvest of fruits and vegetables. As a holiday offering to worship the moon god, melons and fruits also contain many cultural symbolic meanings: watermelon symbolizes reunion, pomegranate symbolizes children and grandchildren, persimmon symbolizes auspiciousness, jujube symbolizes early birth, chestnut symbolizes early marriage and early childbearing, and so on. However, there are also cultural taboos, such as "fragrant pears don't supply the moon", which is homophonic with "pear", implying disaster and contrary to the meaning of Mid-Autumn Festival reunion.

The climax of Mid-Autumn Festival is on the evening of August 15, when the whole family get together for a reunion dinner, which is called "full moon". If relatives haven't come back, a cup of chopsticks will be placed on the table to symbolize family reunion. Among the dishes, "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck in August" (salted duck) is essential, followed by roast chicken with edamame, braised pork with chestnuts, taro or Laoling.

A Qing dynasty Pan recorded in the Chronicle of Jinling: "The Mid-Autumn Festival is dedicated to the moon to display fruits, such as lotus, chestnut and persimmon, and the fragrance is like a pagoda with paper barrels on it, which is called' Dou Xiang'." People in far away Yue Bai burn paper and finally take out offerings such as moon cakes, melons and fruits, which the whole family likes to eat. There is also a strange custom in Old Nanjing: in Yue Bai, when enjoying the moon, if there is an eclipse, everyone will beat gongs and drums and set off firecrackers, which is called "driving away the heavenly dogs". There is also a folk custom in Nanjing: "Women don't sacrifice stoves, men don't Yue Bai". Legend has it that when Chang 'e saw that men were shy, housewives made offerings, withdrew them, burned incense and paper, and even distributed them. Men only accompanied the offerings. As the chief priest, housewives should put on new clothes, skirts and flower shoes to please the moon god and let the whole family reunite safely. Therefore, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called "Daughter's Day" in Nanjing.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, there is also a special activity called "Walking the Moon". In the bright moonlight, people wear gorgeous clothes, travel in groups of three or five, or stroll the streets, or lack boats on the Qinhuai River, or go upstairs to watch the moonlight, talking and laughing. In the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing had a building to look at the moon and a bridge to play with the moon. In the Qing Dynasty, there was the Moon Tower under Lion Mountain, which was a scenic spot for tourists to enjoy the moon. The Moon Building in Mochou Lake Park, built after liberation, has become a new attraction for citizens to enjoy the moon. In the old days, Nanjing people had a special prayer of "walking on the moon": any married woman without a son would go to the Confucius Temple and then cross a bridge. According to legend, there would be "the joy of dreaming of bears" (meaning giving birth to boys). There is a "top bridge" on the pier of Yaowan Street outside Zhonghua Gate. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, an unborn family man came here to throw a crock under the bridge, which is said to make his wife pregnant. Over time, this bridge was also mistakenly called "Top Bridge".