The Tradition and How it is celebrated.

The Tradition and How it is celebrated.

The Date -The date of Mid-autumn Festival also known as Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th moon day of 8th Chinese lunar month (Chicken month). Since the new moon day is the first day of a Chinese Lunar Month. The first day of 8th lunar month in this year is 11th September 2007, thus the Moon Festival is on 25 September 2007.

This is a day to worship the moon god. According to folk legend, this day is also the birthday of the earth god (T'u-ti Kung). This festival signals that the year's hard work in the fields will soon come to an end, with only the harvest left to attend to. People use this opportunity to express their gratitude to heaven (represented by the moon) and earth (symbolized by the earth god) for the blessings they have enjoyed over the past year.

Praying to the moon goddess traditionally by custom are done women and girl who is over the age of 13. If you are wandering why only girl pray to the moon and celebrate the Moon this is becouse the full moon of the eighth Chinese lunar month is a “women”. This is the beginning of the yin part of the year, when the dark takes precedence over the light, and the Moon is the symbol of yin energy, which also includes water, women and night. In the old Chinese agrarian system, autumn and winter were the women’s seasons.

There is a Peking (Beijing) proverb that says: "Men do not bow to the moon. Women do not sacrifice to the God of the Kitchen”

The Moon Goddess, known in many variatopn of the stories are known as Hengo or Chang-e ,who rule rules the Jade Palace of the Moon. Where in may stories and fable she swallowed the pill of immortality given to her husband, the archer Hou Yi, and then fled to the moon to avoid his wrath. Her husband later became the God of the Sun and now the two meet only once a month during the New Moon. Other creatures that live in the Moon include a rabbit who is always pictured working with a pestle, pounding up the elixir of life, a three-legged toad (sometimes said to be Chang-O) and a cassia tree, which although attacked by a woodcutter, keeps renewing itself.

Usually shortly before sunset they will set up the altar or before the moon rises, the women in the village or the family will set up an altar in the middle of the court yard with an image of the Moon Hare or sometimes put a ceramic figure of the Moon Hare or the three-legged toad of the moon in the center, surrounded by 13 moon cakes, the fruit, and any other symbols that represent the moon, like pearls, dimes, abalone shells, mirrors, water, or thing that are link representing the Moon.

A sand-filled receptacle in the center of the altar holds sticks of incense and candles. Spirit money is also placed on the altar, sometimes in the form of folded gold and silver paper, representing ingots, or as "thousand sheets" (a series of connected zigzag strips), or circular pieces like coins. Paper clothing is also set out for the sun and moon, for instnace, a gilt and red crown, or a red apron with gold embroidery.

Decorate with lanterns and then worship the Moon silently as she comes up. The women will “draw her down into their bodies” as if they they are one with the moon, using the posture of drawing down the moon, arms open wide and held up above they heads.

When the moon full every will be bathed in her silvery rays, traditional usually sing a song in honor of the moon, This is followed by the reciting of the poems and readings they brought to honor her. Some will dance and celebrated the even of the full moon while the male will be out merry making and gazing to the moon.