CHINESE FESTIVALS - Eighth Moon

Admin Joined : 28 Feb 2008 Posts : 188

MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL

Luner Dates: Day 15, Eigth Moon
Western Dates: 14, Sep 2008 (Almost September/October)

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most charming and picturesque nights of the calendar.

The festival commemorates a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, the rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to compatriots.

Today, during the festival, people eat special sweet cakes known as "Moon Cakes" made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg-yolk and other ingredients. Along with the cakes, shops sell coloured Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals, and more recently, in the shapes of aeroplanes and space ships. On this family occasion, parents allow children to stay up late and take them to high vantage points such as The Peak to light their lanterns and watch the huge autumn moon rise while eating their moon cakes. Public parks are ablaze with many thousands of lanterns in all colours, sizes and shapes.

Also not to be missed is one of the most spectacular celebrations you'll ever see which takes place in Causeway Bay during the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 14th - 16th day of the eighth lunar month. It's the fire dragon dance in Tai Hang - a collection of streets located in behind the Causeway Bay recreation grounds and features a dragon measuring 67 metres.

Over a century ago, Tai Hang was a village whose inhabitants lived off of farming and fishing. A few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival a typhoon and then a plague wreaked havoc on the village. While the villagers were repairing the damage, a python entered the village and ate their livestock. According to some villagers, the python was the son of the Dragon King. The only way to stop the havoc which had beset their village was to dance a fire dance for three days and nights during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. The villagers made a big fire dragon of straw and stuck incense into the dragon. They lit firecrackers. They danced for three days and three nights and the plague disappeared.

Admin Joined : 28 Feb 2008 Posts : 188

MONKEY GOD FESTIVAL

Luner Dates: Day 16, Eigth Moon
Western Dates: 15, Sep 2008 (Almost September/October)

This mischievous and playful god first appeared in Pilgrim to the West, a novel dating from the Ming dynasty (1386 – 1644) and has been brought into Western and Eastern popular culture with a TV series and movies detailing his adventures. An outcast from Taoist heaven, the Monkey God was redeemed and gained Buddhist immortality by escorting Tang Xuan Zang on his pilgrimage to the West to obtain the teachings of Lord Buddha.

In bygone days, during the Monkey God Festival, a possessed medium would receive tributes from followers and run barefoot over hot coals and then climb a ladder of knives and remain unhurt!

This practice has however ceased and today people celebrate the Monkey God’s birthday by burning incense and paper offerings as tribute to the deity. The Monkey God Temple is located in Sau Mau Ping in Kowloon.

Admin Joined : 28 Feb 2008 Posts : 188

BIRTHDAY OF CONFUCIUS

Luner Dates: Day 27, Eigth Moon
Western Dates: 26, Sep 2008 (Almost September/October)

One of China's most influential philosophers, Confucius's ethics stress self-enlightenment through the Five Virtues of charity, justice, propriety, wisdom and loyalty.

Filial devotion and ancestral worship, observed during the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, continue to be a cornerstone of Confucianist practice today.

Joined : 08 May 2008 Posts : 5

好中意中秋

因為有得食月餅湯圓..
而家會煲蠟tim..
但系而家吾俾
不過都會打麻雀哈哈 I love you