23 Oct 2012 ~ Chung Yeung Festival

Listening to: Ken Stringfellow ~ Doesn't It Remind You Of Something (Danzig in the Moonlight)


Similar to Ching Ming in the spring, Chung Yeung is traditionally a day for the family to go and respect their deceased ancestors. It is also known as the Double Ninth Festival as it falls on the 9th day of the 9th lunar month.

Extended families head to ancestral graves to clean them and repaint inscriptions, and to lay out food offerings such as roast suckling pig and fruit, which are then eaten (after the spirits have consumed the spiritual element of the food).

Also Chongyang Cake is popular.

And incense sticks are burned.

 

It’s also a day to hit the trail, as the holiday has traditional roots in the "going up the mountain".
The story goes that during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) there appeared a devil of plague in the Ruhe River. A kid named Heng Jing was taught by an old Taoist how to defeat this plague.

The priest told the boy that the devil would come back on the 9th of September and told him to go back and save the village. He did this by telling them to go climb up a mountain, then while the villagers were safe he tricked the plague devil with some strong Chinese wine made of Chrysanthemum flowers and killed him.

To protect against danger, it is still customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum wine, and wear the zhuyu (茱萸) plant, which is a species of dogwood known Japanese cornelian cherry, as is considered to have cleansing qualities to air out houses and cure illnesses.