The Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn is a very important Chinese festival. It falls on the 15th day of August. A few days before the festival, everyone in the family will help to make the house clean and beautiful. Lanterns will be hung in front of the house.
On the evening there will be a big family dinner. People who work far away from their homes will try to come back for the union. After dinner, people will light the lanterns which are usually red and round. Children will play with their own toy lanterns happily.
At night the moon is usually round and bright. People can enjoy the moon while eating moon-cakes which are the special food for this festival. They can look back on the past and look forward to the future together. It is said that there was a dragon in the sky. The dragon wanted to swallow up the moon. To protect the frighten the dragon away.
中秋节
中秋节是中国一个很重要的节日,在八月十五号。在节日来临的前几天,家庭中的每一个人都帮着打扫房子,把房子装扮得漂漂亮亮的,灯笼挂在屋前。
晚上有一顿美餐,离家在外工作的人也要回来团圆。晚饭后,人们点亮灯笼,一般是红色的圆灯笼。孩子们会高高兴兴地玩他们的玩具灯笼。
晚上月亮又圆又大,人们在赏月的同时吃着中秋节特别的食品——月饼。人们在一起回顾过去,展望未来。据说天上有一条龙,它要把月亮吞下去。为了保护月亮,孩子们要弄出很大的响动把龙吓跑。
Mid-Autumn Festival
The 15th day of the 8th lunar month
The joyous Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, around the time of the autumn equinox(秋分). Many referred to it simply as the "Fifteenth of the Eighth Moon".
This day was also considered as a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain had been harvested by this time and food was abundant. Food offerings were placed on an altar set up in the courtyard. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, pomegranates(石榴), melons, oranges and pomelos(柚子) might be seen. Special foods for the festival included moon cakes, cooked taro(芋头)and water caltrope(菱角), a type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns. Some people insisted that cooked taro be included because at the time of creation, taro was the first food discovered at night in the moonlight. Of all these foods, it could not be omitted from the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The round moon cakes, measuring about three inches in diameter and one and a half inches in thickness, resembled Western fruitcakes in taste and consistency. These cakes were made with melon seeds(西瓜子), lotus seeds(莲籽), almonds(杏仁), minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard(猪油). A golden yolk(蛋黄) from a salted duck egg was placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust was decorated with symbols of the festival. Traditionally, thirteen moon cakes were piled in a pyramid to symbolize the thirteen moons of a "complete year," that is, twelve moons plus one intercalary(闰月的) moon.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festivity for both the Han and minority nationalities. The custom of worshipping the moon can be traced back as far as the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties (2000 B.C.-1066 B.C.). In the Zhou Dynasty(1066 B.C.-221 B.C.), people hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon whenever the Mid-Autumn Festival sets in. It becomes very prevalent in the Tang Dynasty(618-907 A.D.) that people enjoy and worship the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 A.D.), however, people send round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. When it becomes dark, they look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Since the Ming (1368-1644 A.D. ) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911A.D.), the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration becomes unprecedented popular. Together with the celebration there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense(熏香), planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. However, the custom of playing under the moon is not so popular as it used to be nowadays, but it is not less popular to enjoy the bright silver moon. Whenever the festival sets in, people will look up at the full silver moon, drinking wine to celebrate their happy life or thinking of their relatives and friends far from home, and extending all of their best wishes to them.
Moon Cakes
There is this story about the moon-cake. during the Yuan dynasty (A.D. 1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to the foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each moon cake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attached and overthrew the government. Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend and was called the Moon Cake.
For generations, moon cakes have been made with sweet fillings of nuts, mashed red beans, lotus-seed paste or Chinese dates(枣子), wrapped in a pastry. Sometimes a cooked egg yolk can be found in the middle of the rich tasting dessert. People compare moon cakes to the plum pudding and fruit cakes which are served in the English holiday seasons.
Nowadays, there are hundreds varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of Moon Festival.
Mid-Autumn Festival is an old Festival in China.It is said that in the mid-autumn day ,you can see a beautiful girl in the moon(We called she as Change)and a little rabbit.In fact,it's a myth.Nowadays,people celebrate the day by eating mooncakes.It's a kind of cake with many kinds of food in the cake like meat,bean,beef,stawberry sauce and so on.
你是读初中还是高中的,高中的高一还是高二好像有一篇那样的文章