The 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is a traditional folk festival in China. It is commonly known as July and half, or Ghost Festival (in some places, it is on July 14th). September 2, 2020, is July and a half, the mid Yuan Festival.

In the Zhong Yuan Festival, every family will hold activities to worship their ancestors, and some people will hold family banquets. In ancient times, when offering sacrifices to ancestors, people paid great attention to etiquette, which had a whole set of conventional procedures. For example, before dinner, you need to sprinkle wine for three times to show that the ancestors have finished the banquet, and then the family will sit together and have a holiday dinner together. At that time, on the seventh day of July, the common people would take the souls of their ancestors’ home through certain rituals. They would offer tea and food to the ancestors three times a day, until they were sent back after the mid Yuan Festival on July 15.

However, these forms are full of superstitious color after all. So far, the folk gradually eliminate the activity form and cognition of superstitious color, but retain the form of ancestor worship as a memorial to ancestors. Although the festival was full of superstition at first, it also has its merits, that is, the recognition of advocating "filial piety" in ancient and modern times. Therefore, the Zhong Yuan Festival is a kind of traditional cultural festival in memory of the ancestors. Its cultural core is respecting and filial piety to the ancestors. It is acceptable to retain the activities of ancestor worship.

Zhong Yuan Festival, originated in ancient times, is the product of ancient ancestors worshiping nature and sacrificing harvest. In ancient times, people believed that the harvest of farming came from the protection of gods. In addition, July was the month of auspiciousness and filial piety, and the 15th day of a month of July was a good day to celebrate the harvest and reward the earth. Therefore, on this day, the common people had to offer sacrifices to their ancestors, such as new rice, to report the autumn harvest to their ancestors, and to hope for a good harvest in the coming year.

July and a half, known as the "Zhong Yuan Festival", is derived from Taoist sayings after the Eastern Han Dynasty. Taoism has a "three-yuan theory": "Heaven officials bestow blessings on the Yuan Dynasty, local officials forgive sins in Yuan Dynasty, and water officials relieve misfortune in Yuan Dynasty". Taoism believes that July half (Zhong Yuan) is the birthday day of local officials and the day of praying for forgiveness of sins. On this day, all ghosts will be released from the hell, so that the dead ancestors of every family can go home for reunion. As time goes by, the festival of ancestor worship in the autumn of July is called "Zhong Yuan Festival". In the Tang Dynasty, when Taoism was highly respected, the Zhong Yuan Festival flourished. In this way, the name of "Zhong Yuan" was gradually fixed as the name of the festival in July and a half, and the festival time was set on July 15, and has continued to this day.

During the mid-Yuan Festival, there are many customs, such as ancestor worship, paper burning, land worship, duck eating, sky lantern jumping and river lantern setting. Due to a slight deviation in culture, customs vary from place to place. As the saying goes, "there are different customs in ten li and different customs in a hundred Li", it means that there are differences in customs between different places.

Time: September 2, 2020

Source: Tencent Net