Mid-Autumn Festival~

Hi all,

Something to share~

Today is the mid-autumn festival that is celebrated by chinese all around the world and no exception here in QATAR although the celebration is not as great as in other places, still its a festival that chinese looks forward at this time of the year.

Here s are some facts of the festival. Enjoy~

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is a popular East Asian tradition of Chinese origin, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty, that spread to neighbouring cultures like Japan. It was first called Mid-Autumn festival in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia and Singapore, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian calendar), a date that parallels the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year), and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

1. Eating moon cakes outside under the moon
2. Putting pomelo rinds on one's head
3. Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on
towers, floating sky lanterns
4. Burning incense in reverence to deities including
Chang'e (simplified Chinese: 嫦娥; traditional
Chinese: 嫦娥; pinyin: cháng'é)
5. Shops selling mooncakes, before the festival, often
display pictures of Chang'e floating to the moon.