Friday, October 01, 2004

mid-autumn festival: the legends

oopsie!
i have forgotten to include folklores behind the mid-autumn festival. i was going to do so before the actual day arrived but i have completely forgotten about it. there are still many more mid-autumn related posts waiting to be written. so this week is definitely going to be a mid-autumn festival week on pinkcocoa's blog!

back to the folklores part. there are many different stories you will hear about the mid-autumn festival. you can also call the mid-autumn festival the moon festival because it is in fact a day to worship yue niang-niang (goddess of moon). so it's not hard to see that most folklores on the festival are about the moon. hm. i wonder if there is a celebration dedicated to the sun in the chinese culture.

here are a few of the more commonly told folklores:
1. the legend of Chang Er, the Moon Goddess (Chang Er ben yue)
2. the origin of mooncake
3. the legend of Wu Gang (Wu Gang fa mu)
4. the legend of the Jade Rabbit (Yu Tu dao yao)

Renee has written a fanstatic post on Chang Er and the origin of mooncake.
See Chinese Fortune Calendar on other stories.