Traditional Chinese Festival(2)

The Qingming Festival, Pure Brightness Festival or Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the 15th day from the Spring Equinox, usually occurring around April 5 of the Chinese lunar calendar. Its name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime (踏青 Tàqīng, "treading on the greenery") and tend to the graves of departed ones.

Dragon Boat Festival Dragon Boat Festival now occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month of the traditional Chinese calendar, the source of its alternate name, the Double Fifth Festival. The Duanwu Festival is believed to have originated in ancient China. A number of theories exist about its origins as a number of folk traditions and explanatory myths are connected to its observance. Today the best known of these relates to the suicide in 278 BC of Qu Yuan, a poet and statesman in the kingdom of Chu during the Warring States period.

Mid-Autumn Festival

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The festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, during a full moon.

Alternative names

The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known by other names, such as:

Moon Festival, because of the celebration's association with the full

moon on this night, as well as the traditions of moon worship and moon gazing. Mooncake Festival, because of the popular tradition of eating

mooncakes on this occasion.

Zhongqiu Festival, the official name in pinyin. Lantern Festival, a term sometimes used in Singapore and Malaysia, which is not to be confused with the Lantern Festival in China that occurs on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese calendar.

Reunion Festival, because in olden times, a woman in China would take

the occasion to visit her parents before returning to celebrate with her husband and his parents.[3]

Harvest Moon and Chinese Thanksgiving, terms used in the Chinese

community to describe this as a harvest festival.

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The Double Ninth Festival

The Double Ninth Festival, observed on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese calendar, is a traditional Chinese holiday.

According to the I Ching, nine is a yang number; the ninth day of the ninth lunar month (or double nine) has too much yang (a traditional Chinese spiritual concept) and is thus a potentially dangerous date. Hence, the day is also called "Double Yang Festival" (重陽節). To protect against danger, it is customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum [kri'sænθ m m] wine, and wear the zhuyu (茱萸) plant, Cornus officinalis. (Both chrysanthemum and zhuyu are considered to have cleansing qualities and are used on other occasions to air out houses and cure illnesses.)

On this holiday some Chinese also visit the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects. In Hong Kong, whole 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). Chongyang Cake is also popular. Incense sticks are burned.

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