Chinese folk custom believes that spring is the time to worship and fall to pay back. Spring worship welcomes all saints from heaven and earth, mainly god of the sun; and fall payback is to pay tribute to the generous, load carrying mother earth at the end of a harvest year. To offer respect to the land, the moon, and mother's body is a humane culture extended from matriarchal society. Eating moon cake is a palatable custom of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The moon cake relief patterns are numerous and colorful, both in terms of art and cultural implication. Fairy tales told through moon cake relief patterns include "A pairing fish;" "Baby with coiled hair;" "Sal tree of life;" and story of the jade hare from the moon palace.
Mid-Autumn Festival moon cake pattern showing the "Sal tree of life" and the jade hare from the moon palace. (Jishan, Shanxi).
Folk customs of moon worship vary from region to region in China. The most unforgettable I have seen was in central Shanxi. An altar was set up in the yard to burn incense and candles. Layers of fruits piled up on the altar as offerings to the moon fairy. Placed in the middle of the altar was a huge round cake of one-meter in diameter, showing patterns of radiating lotus pedals coming from the center and colorful floury flowers and figures like "Monkey eating a peach." In between of the lotus pedals were jujubes, symbolic of life and propagation. The cake, likening lotus to the moon and mother's body, was a prayer for a bumper harvest, family reunion and prosperity.
Worship the moon at the Mid-Autumn Festival (Dai County, Shanxi)
Floury flower to worship the moon at Mid-Autumn Festival - Photo by Qian Xiaoguang.
From the ancient folk fables and unearthed articles, the sun is always connected with a golden crow or a legendary Fusang tree; while the moon is linked to the moon toad, the jade hare and the laurel. The sun and the moon always move around the sky, rising from the east and setting to the west. It reflects human's basic knowledge of life and its perpetuity. The moon toad and the medicine mortar are female symbols in the family of the universe. The rabbit is god of proliferation; and the Fusang, the laurel and the Sal are the tree of life. Together, those symbols and images made up a fairy tale that has been told and passed down for thousands of years. Obviously, moon worship is the main theme of folk art works on the Mid- Autumn Festival.
China is a multi-ethnic nation. Each nationality and every geographical region has its own custom festivities. Miao ethnic group worships ancestors by thumping cows; Yi and Bai ethnic groups have the Torch Festival; others like the "King's day" of Yao ethnic group; "Zangli New Year (lunar calendar used by Tibetan ethnic group);" "Aobaojie" in Inner Mongolia; and Paiwan ethnic group's celebration of harvest in Taiwan, etc. It is through this array of festivals that folk art is seeded, grown and blossomed.
