登高重九 菊酒一杯敬白首 | Double Ninth Festival: Honoring the senior people
As one of the most important festivals in autumn, the Double Ninth Festival, which is celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, fell on Saturday this year. In today’s China, it is also a day to pay respects to senior citizens.
Chongyang Festival in Chinese, or Double Ninth Festival in English, is a traditional festival having a long history of over 2,000 years. The earliest records of the festival could be traced back to the Warring States period (206B.C. – 220 AD), but at that time, it was marked as a ritual to worship the gods and ancestors for blessing the harvest.
The folk celebrations of the festival originally appeared in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and in the following centuries, activities and traditions started to diversify.
Tracing back in history, the Double Ninth Festival has quite a number of alternative names, such as Highland-Climbing Festival, Chrysanthemum Festival, Dogwood Festival, and then, in the 1980s, it was designated as the Senior People’s Day.
Many of the celebrations are inherited from the past, including admiring the flowers, drinking flower wine or tea, wearing cornel (dogwood) twigs, and climbing to the highlands.
Drink chrysanthemum wine and tea
Chrysanthemums are believed to have the effect of reducing internal heat and driving bad luck away. Drinkers of the chrysanthemum wine would be free from evil and have strong physique against cold weather.
If wine is too strong for you, chrysanthemum tea will also accomplish the same trick.
Eat Double Ninth cake
The cake was usually made of glutinous rice flour with nuts and jujube sandwiched inside. People believe eating the cakes will bring good luck and personal progress will happen in the following days.
Wear cornel twigs
Ancient people believed that planting cornel twigs on Double Ninth Festival could prevent diseases and avoid disasters. The cornel twigs were put on people’s arms or heads or put in sachets. Popular in old days, the custom is not that alluring nowadays though.
Go mountain climbing
Chinese literary works have many poems and proverbs describing the scene and feeling of mountain climbing on this day. Mountain climbing has long been believed to prevent disease. Nowadays it’s an opportunity for family members to gather and climb mountains to enjoy the scenery of autumn.
Chrysanthemums bloom during this time of the year. Don’t forget to take a moment to smell the flowers during your mountain tour.
Visit the elderly
The Double Ninth Festival is also an occasion to pay respect to one’s ancestors. Sweeping ancestors’ graves and visiting elderly members in the family are usually what people do on this day.
Double Ninth Festival in Chinese culture
But one may wonder how come the Double Ninth Festival carry so much significance in China? The reason is hiding in the Chinese culture. The Chinese character for “nine” is a homophone to the character for “long,” and “Double Ninth” in Chinese sounds the same with “a long time”.
By celebrating on this day, the Chinese people are praying for a long and healthy life as well.
The ancient Chinese poets and scholars has left many odes to the festival and everything related to it, such as the chrysanthemum, the climbing, the reunion with family members and, of course, the deep yearning for their family members while away from home on the day.
In today’s culture, while many traditions are fading away, love for the senior members of the families has been heavily emphasized. The Senior People’s Day was even written into the Chinese law in 2012.
Especially in the modern Chinese society, so many young people have preferred to migrate to big cities to work, leaving their parents at home alone. According to a report, there will be over 250 million people in China above 60 by 2020.
Fortunately, more and more Chinese people, no matter how far away from home, are aware of sending a message or making a phone call to their parents and grandparents on the day.
How do you plan to celebrate the Double Ninth today?