The Happening of Lantern Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival has a history of 2000 years. During these 2000 years lots of Mid-Autumn traditions have been thought up by Chinese people. All the celebrations show the happiness and excitement of people.

The main celebrations during the Mid-Autumn Festival are appreciating the moon, eating moon cakes together and making Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns. These three celebrations have been passed from generation to generation. Chinese people may think the Mid-Autumn Festival is not coming if they don’t do these three things.

Do you want to know what ancient Chinese people said about the festival? I would like to share with you about the legends of Chang'e and Hou Yi and The Jade Rabbit

Chang'e and Hou Yi:
Long long ago, there were 10 suns on the sky. They burnt all the plants on the earth. People were dying.

One day, a hero whose name was Hou Yi used his bow and arrows to shoot down nine of them. All the people on the earth were saved.

One day, the queen of heaven gave Hou Yi a bottle elixir which could make Hou Yi become an immortal but the elixir was only efficacious for one person. Hou Yi did want to become an immortal but he wanted to stay with her beautiful wife Chang'e more, so he didn't drink the elixir and asked his wife Chang'e to keep it for him.

Hou Yi was becoming more and more famous after he shot down the nine suns and more and more men wanted Hou Yi to be their master. Most of them were accepted by Hou Yi.

Not every student of Hou Yi had good morality. Feng Meng, one of his students, wanted to seize his elixir. One day, Hou Yi went hunting with his students but Feng Meng pretended to be ill and stay at home. When making sure Hou Yi had gone he went to Hou Yi's house and tried to force Chang'e to give him the elixir. Chang'e knew she couldn't defeat Feng Meng so she drank the elixir immediately. The elixir made her become an immortal and fly higher and higher. Finally, she stopped on the moon.

From then on, people often pray Chang'e for fortune and safety. Especially on the Mid-Autumn Festival they prepared lots of foods for Chang'e.

The Jade Rabbit

One day, three immortals who were living in the heaven came to the earth. They asked a fox, a monkey and a rabbit to find some food for them respectively. The fox and the monkey both found something for the three immortals while the rabbit got nothing. The rabbit felt very sorry for the three immortals. Finally, he jumped into the fire and said to the three immortals "eat me, please!" the three immortal were deep moved by the rabbit. They decided to entitle the rabbit a reputation of "Jade Rabbit" and let him accompany Chang'e in the Moon Palace.

Appreciating the Moon

Appreciating the moon has been a custom since Tang Dynasty. Not only the rich merchants and officials but also the common citizens liked appreciating the moon together at that time. The rich merchants and officials held big parties in their big courts. They drank and appreciated the bright moon. Music and dances are also indispensable. The common citizens just prayed to the moon for a good harvest.

Nowadays, people also like appreciating the moon on Mid-Autumn Festival. Chinese Family members have dinner together in the evening of Mid-Autumn Festival. After the dinner, they may talk about their work, the children, and their future plans. Sometimes, people go to park to see the decorations which were made only for the Festival.

Moon Cakes

At the end of Yuan Dynasty (a dynasty built by the Mongols), Han people’s army wanted to overthrow the rule of Mongols so they planed an uprising but they had no way to inform every Han people who wanted to join them the time of the uprising without being discovered by the Mongols. One day, the military counselor of Han people’s army Liu Bowen thought out a stratagem related to moon cakes. On one hand, Liu Bowen asked his soldiers to spread the rumor that there would be a serious disease in winter and eating moon cakes was the only way to cure the disease; on the other hand, he asked soldiers to write "uprising, at the night of Mid-autumn Festival" on papers and put them into moon cakes then sell them to common Han people. When the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival came the huge uprising broke out. From then on, people eat moon cakes on every Mid-Autumn Festival to commemorate the uprising.

Nowadays, people also like appreciating the moon on Autumn Moon Festival. Family members have dinner together in the evening of the Festival.

  

Making Chinese Mid-Autumn Lanterns

 

 

Mid-Autumn lanterns are not as colorful as the ones in  Lantern Festival. There is no big lantern party during Mid-Autumn Festival but the children like making colorful lanterns very much. They make lanterns of different shapes and let them float on the rivers. They won’t leave the riversides until the light of the lanterns disappears. Sometimes, they make the Hung Ming lantern which can fly because the burning candles heat the air in the lantern. The lantern rises with the heated air.