Cultural Historian Meng Hui: In ancient times, the Mid -Autumn Festival was not only the reunion festival, but also everyone’s carnival

Most of the modern people are eating moon cakes, worshiping the moon and watching the moon. In addition to these, what else does the ancients play? Meng Hui, Deputy Director of the Culture and Arts Committee of the Chinese Arts and Crafts Society, and cultural historian, told reporters that the content of the Mid -Autumn Festival is completely shrinking, and it has become a party of private families. In fact, at least from the Song Dynasty, the Mid -Autumn Festival has publicity. It is the biggest carnival outside the Yuan Festival.

Mid -Autumn Festival Jiaqingtu (local) Qing Zhang Tingyan

Reporter: Teacher Meng, our modern people mentioned Mid -Autumn Festival, as if they were eating moon cakes and worshiping the moon. How did the ancients spend Mid -Autumn Festival?

Meng Hui: The ancients passed the Mid -Autumn Festival. In fact, the fourteen, fifteenth, and sixteen sixteen had to meet the moon for three days. During the period, the daily party forms are different. Like the family banquet, the atmosphere is warm and the family is reunited. In addition, the literati also invites the confidant Jiayou to hold an elegant collection, called "Watching the Moon" ("The Culprit"). Bai Juyi, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, had a poem called "August 15th with the guests". It is the elegant of popularity from the Tang Dynasty.

The literati ’s lunar will be elegant, which is different from other moon -viewing gatherings. The literati appreciation of the moon is cultural content. For literati, the happiest and happiest entertainment activities are on -site poems. For traditional literati, writing poems is so happy to skate, skiing, singing, dancing, and desserts today. Therefore, at the moon watching meeting, everyone must use their talents. The most popular activity is the joint poem, that is, everyone according to the limited rhyme. You sentence me one by one, chant the growth poem on the scene, in the "Dream of Red Mansions", after the Jiafu Mid -Autumn Festival Night Banquet, Daiyu, Xiang Yun and Miao Yu are the Scenic Sentences. The literati watch the monthly meeting.

The family banquet is warm, and the literati gathered elegance. So, in tradition, there is also a moon -viewing party. The order of order. Like the Suzhou in the Ming Dynasty, on the night of the Mid -Autumn Festival, no matter whether it was a local family or a foreign person, they took the felt and wine dishes, and even asked the band and singer to automatically gather to the tiger hill. Therefore, that night, all the attractions in Huqiu were full of people, leaving no place at all. Everyone in groups, finding a place to sit down, set off the dishes, and then start various entertainment activities. Once the moon rises, hundreds of places will compete for music. Then change it to singing with music, so I just play in the middle of the night. At this time, there are fewer people, and there will be masters on the scene to show chorus, solo, and solo.

Now there is always a joke that only Han people do not sing in the fifty -six ethnic groups. However, the people of the Ming Dynasty could sing very well, and Suzhou people could sing and sing the popular songs at the time. All in all is a variety of gameplay, which is full of tricks and play until the middle of the night.

Zhang Ye, a master of literature in the Ming Dynasty, has a "Tiger Hill Mid -Autumn Festival Night", which vividly describes the beautiful scene of Suzhou people gathered together to Tiger Hills and pass the Mid -Autumn Festival.

Everyone said that Zhang Jian was a literary everyone in the late Ming Dynasty. Everyone's "Tao Yanmeng Yi" read it, but everyone reads "Lake Hing Ting Watching Snow". Since modern times, Chinese intellectuals seem to only appreciate that kind of cold articles, and they can't appreciate happiness. The same carnival and excitement written by Zhang Huan seemed to be invisible.

Reporter: Everyone is familiar with Zhang Jian. In "Tao Yanmeng Yi", he also recorded the content of many cities such as Nanjing, Suzhou. He also wrote an article that mentioned the Mid -Autumn Festival in Shaoxing.

Meng Hui: He is also imitating the customs of the Mid -Autumn Festival in Shaoxing Mid -Autumn Festival. He sent an invitation to his friends, letting each friend bring a felt, one bucket of wine, five kinds of meat vegetables, ten kinds of vegetables and fruits. At the dusk of the Mid -Autumn Festival, more than 700 people were gathered around the Paushan Pavilion. Everyone temporarily took up a banquet and sat on the ground. Of the more than 700 people, more than one hundred people were good at singing. Therefore, after the banquet began, more than a hundred people kept singing together and singing the most popular popular songs at the time. After the moon came up, Zhang Ye asked the opera class in the family to take the Paushan Pavilion as a stage, and performed more than a dozen play under the bright moon and the light candlelight. In the middle of the night, everyone borrowed the kitchen of the temple to do supper.

In short, with a relaxed and joyful attitude, Zhang Ye and his friends played in the middle of the night, and only scattered until three o'clock in the morning. Zhang Ye wrote very beautifully in the article. At that time, "the moonlight was splashed like water, and people were in the middle of the moon.

Therefore, the traditional Mid -Autumn Festival is not just a family reunion festival, but a collective holiday for everyone. Not only do people set up a family banquet, not only to enjoy the moon with relatives and friends, but also the custom of collecting the moon collectively. Numerous people gather together to share reunion and enhance the emotions between people.

Mid -Autumn Festival fasting incense Zhou Muqiao

Reporter: Thirty or forty years ago in the rural market, a large collection before the Mid -Autumn Festival will be particularly lively. Everyone is buying and selling foods. What is the market of the ancients when the Mid -Autumn Festival is?

Meng Hui: Like Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, large shops on the main bustling streets will display the samples of their highest -grade products in front of the store. In the days of the Mid -Autumn Festival in Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, they were actually group exhibitions on commercial streets, and merchants promoted themselves to the public. On the Mid -Autumn Festival night, many cities are buying and selling all night. The shops and people will set up crafts on the theme of the moon in front of the door, so that the people walking passing by will be happy. Therefore, after the end of the family banquet or the end of the elegance, the person with good energy is not to go to sleep at all, but to go to the lively street to walk on the moon, enjoy the moon, and enjoy the lively street scene of the Mid -Autumn Festival.

The Mid -Autumn Festival is also China's second largest light festival. Many places start from the Song Dynasty. In some places, water lanterns are also placed. During the Southern Song Dynasty, water lamps were placed on the Zhejiang River, and hundreds of thousands of lambskin lamps were placed. The custom of this water lamp continued in many places. And there are various kinds of lanterns. For example, in some places to produce grapefruit, just order grapefruit lights. After everyone eating reunion meals, they have to go shopping and enjoy lanterns, which is very lively.

In the economic and developed Jiangnan, there are women's collective "walking the moon" customs. In the evening of the Mid -Autumn Festival, women walked out of the house and went to the streets to watch the moonlight, watch the lights, watch the furnishings and products in front of the shop, and watch the street view. Like Suzhou, although everyone likes to get together to Huqiu, in fact, there are not so many people in Huqiu, so from Tiger Hill to Suzhou Gate, the famous Qili Mountain Pond, cruise boat paintings next to each other, countless. People participated in the joyful night of the Mid -Autumn Festival on the cruise. The river channel of Qili Mountain Pond, the lights and the moonlight contended, and the singing and laughter continued.

Therefore, the traditional Mid -Autumn Festival, the real Mid -Autumn Festival, everyone is playing overnight, and you must go home until you have fun. It can be said that the Mid -Autumn Festival has the characteristics of "unique music". It is all people who know and not know, and enjoy the peaceful reunion night together.

Therefore, I always talk about the Mid -Autumn Festival is not just the reunion festival, it is also a carnival. Shangyuan Festival is the most important carnival, and the Mid -Autumn Festival is almost the second largest carnival.

Reporter: Is there any other entertainment activities in other entertainment activities?

Meng Hui: In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was another event, which specially tested the cooperation and hands -on ability of boys. It is a group of boys to go to the wild to pick up various broken tile stones. Before the Dusk of the Mid -Autumn Festival, use those broken tile stones to set up a tower, and then point a lot of oil lamps on the tower. This kind of activity has now continued and evolved into a pagoda. You see that the pagoda in various places today is to use a tile to set up a tower and ignite the fire in the tower, which is particularly magnificent.

Jinhua has a kind of "incense ball" lamp. It is particularly amazing. After igniting the full -line fragrance, in the night, people can see that a ball consisting of the light spots floats in the air, which is very beautiful and has a fragrance.

In addition, there are high -Taiwan worshiping the moon, etc. This is the custom of the Mid -Autumn Festival in China.

What I want to say is that the traditional Mid -Autumn Festival is not just a private festival. It is also a public festival. It is not only a family reunion festival, it is also the carnival of everyone. Either public places, commercial streets, streets, and village countryside, there are various entertainment activities for everyone to participate in it and enjoy it.

Yangtze Evening News/Zi Niu Journalist Sun Qingyun Zang Lei

Edit: Qin Xiaoyi

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