Monday 5 September 2011

Moon Cakes Festival Coming Soon





This year all the Chinese will eat mooncake and play lantern due to the
 Mid-Autumn Festival ( chong jiu jie ) that be fall on 12 September 2011. 



What is Mid-Autumn Festival? The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar.




Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together. Besides that, we can carry lantern during Mooncake Festival !!





Celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival is strongly associated with the legend of Houyi and Chang'e, the Moon Goddess of Immortality. Chang'E, was married to the great General Hou-Yi of the Imperial Guard. General Hou was a skilled archer.


One day, at the behest of the emperor, he shot down eight of nine suns that had mysteriously appeared in the heaven that morning. His marksmanship was richly rewarded by the emperor and he became very famous. However, the people feared that these suns would appear again to torture them and dry up the planet, so they prayed to the Goddess of Heaven (Wang Mu) to make General Hou immortal so that he could always defend the emperor, his progeny and the country. Their wish was granted and General Hou was given a Pill of Immortality. 

Another version of this story notes that Chang'E, the wife of the Divine Archer, shot down nine of ten suns plaguing the world and received the Herb of Immortality as a reward.Whoever the hero was, Chang'E grabbed the pill (or the herb) and fled to the moon. In some versions it is uncertain whether she ever actually got there, because Chinese operas always portray her as still dancing-flying toward the moon.When Chang'E reached the moon, she found a tree under which there was a friendly hare. Because the air on the moon is cold, she began coughing and the Immortality Pill came out of her throat.She thought it would be good to pound the pill into small pieces and scatter them on Earth so that everyone could be immortal. So she ordered the hare to pound the pill, built a palace for herself and remained on the moon.



Let's eat mooncakes and play lantern..(^.^)

2 comments:

Rean said...

i knew this history before bcoz my friend is chinese and we presented about msian's culture and this to vietnamese last month.. :)

Lat'z said...

@iMBobo wow..so great...

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