MUZIChinese Matrix
Mid-Autumn Festival · FFET10346
On Mid-Autumn night families set out fruit and mooncakes in the courtyard, watch the moon, and share the mooncakes; they also exchange mooncakes as gifts before the festival.
The full moon of the eighth month: an autumn festival of moon viewing and reunion
Mid-Autumn falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. People watch the moon, set out fruit and mooncakes in courtyards, share the cakes with family, and exchange them beforehand. By 1900, wealthy households exchanging mooncakes and fruit appeared in Fucha Dunchong’s Yanjing Suishiji. The passages read in the Northern Song Dongjing Menghua Lu and Southern Song Mengliang Lu cover moon-viewing, wine, crabs and fruit but mention no mooncakes. Mooncake styles include those of Beijing, Suzhou, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Chaozhou and Ningbo.
On Mid-Autumn night, people set out fruit and mooncakes in the courtyard, watch the moon, and share the cakes with family; they also exchange mooncakes beforehand. There is a related entry on Cantonese-style mooncake making.1,2,3
The 15th day of the 8th lunar month. Mid-Autumn became a festival in the Tang. In the Northern Song, new wine went on sale, people took wine-house seats to watch the moon, and crabs and fruit were in season. In the Southern Song, the rich climbed towers to watch the moon, ordinary households built small terraces and feasted, and the poor bought wine. These passages in volume 8 of Dongjing Menghua Lu and volume 4 of Mengliang Lu mention no mooncakes. The term mooncake appears in the Southern Song Mengliang Lu for a year-round pastry; its link to Mid-Autumn appears in the Ming Zhuozhong Zhi. These 2 claims were not checked against the original texts. By 1900, wealthy households exchanging mooncakes and fruit before the festival appeared in Fucha Dunchong’s Yanjing Suishiji.1,2,3,4,5
Mid-Autumn is observed across China, with mooncake styles from Beijing, Suzhou, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Chaozhou and Ningbo, among others.1,2
People set fruit in courtyards as offerings to the moon, wealthy households exchanged mooncakes and fruit before the festival, and large cakes bore moon-palace, toad and rabbit designs—customs found in Yanjing Suishiji. Ordinary Southern Song households feasted under the moon on small terraces, as recorded in Mengliang Lu.3,4
By 1900, Beijing households’ custom of exchanging mooncakes appeared in Yanjing Suishiji.3
Legend has it that Chang'e drank an elixir and rose to the moon, where a rabbit and a toad are said to live, and that people offer her cakes and fruit. The tale is not specific to mooncakes.
Told in: A folk tale told across the country, found in the Chinese Wikipedia entry on the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Legend has it that during the transition from Yuan to Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang's side hid a call to rise on the fifteenth inside mooncakes passed among households. Chinese Wikipedia reports it as a legend; no early text was opened.
Told in: A folk tale told of the change from Yuan to Ming, found in the Chinese Wikipedia entry on the mooncake.
