Mid-Autumn Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a continuation of the ancient custom of revering the moon. As early as the Zhou dynasty there were activities of “greeting the cold on a Mid-Autumn night”, “presenting fine fur at Mid-Autumn” and “worshipping the moon on the evening of the autumn equinox”; in the Han dynasty, on the day of Mid-Autumn or of the Start of Autumn, acts of honoring and caring for the aged were performed; by the Jin dynasty the custom of enjoying the moon at Mid-Autumn had already emerged; in the Tang dynasty, the festival was linked with myths and legends such as Chang'e flying to the moon, Wu Gang chopping the cassia, the jade rabbit pounding elixir, Yang Guifei becoming the moon goddess and Emperor Minghuang of Tang touring the moon palace, filling this traditional festival with romantic color, and the vogue of moon appreciation flourished greatly from then on; in the Northern Song dynasty, the fifteenth day of the eighth month was fixed as the Mid-Autumn Festival, and related seasonal foods appeared — “the small cake, chewed like the moon, has butter and malt sugar inside”. Tradition holds that it originated in the Eastern and Western Jin dynasties; in the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong era of the Ming dynasty (1449) it was named “Autumn Colors” (Qiu Se), meaning that the activity was held in Foshan's golden autumn season. From the mid-Ming dynasty to the Qing dynasty, Foshan Autumn Colors developed to its peak.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Mid-Autumn Festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month is also called “Moon Eve”, “Autumn Festival”, “Mid-Autumn Festival”, “Eighth-Month Festival”, “Eighth-Month Gathering”, “Chasing-the-Moon Festival”, “Playing-the-Moon Festival”, “Moon-Worshipping Festival”, “Daughters' Festival” and “Reunion Festival”; it is a traditional cultural festival popular among the numerous ethnic groups of China. Because the season falls precisely in the middle of the three autumn months, it bears the name “Mid-Autumn”. According to the common view, on Mid-Autumn night the moon is at its biggest, roundest and brightest, so from ancient times to the present there has been the custom of feasting and enjoying the moon at Mid-Autumn. Married women who have returned to their parents' home must go back to their husband's family on this day, seeking the reunion of the whole household with peace and auspiciousness. In Hong Kong, when the zest of Mid-Autumn is not yet exhausted, people revel once more on the night of the sixteenth, a practice called “chasing the moon”. In the course of long-term development, a series of activities held around the Mid-Autumn Festival has taken shape, including worshipping the moon, eating moon cakes, divination, presenting melons to pray for sons, enjoying the moon, cricket fighting, playing katydids, sacrificing to the birthday of the Earth God, telling legends of the moon and of Chang'e, the jade rabbit and Wu Gang, and so on. In these activities, implements such as the moon-god spirit horse, moon-cake molds, the Rabbit Lord, cricket jars and katydid cages are used. The greatest characteristic of the Mid-Autumn Festival is that it entrusts to the sky the beautiful wish for harmony between humanity and nature; mid-autumn falls precisely in the season of agricultural harvest, and moon cakes and melons and fruits are both offerings to the gods and concrete symbols of the harvest. On the night of fine flowers and full moon every household reunites, strengthening kinship; the Mid-Autumn Festival has thereby become an important medium of social harmony. The Mid-Autumn Festival is the most important festival of the Chinese nation after the Spring Festival. In the present era of continuous modernization of social life, although related festival entertainments, food and other activities remain lively, the traditional connotation of the festival is gradually fading; it is therefore necessary to continue and consolidate the national-cultural connotation of the Mid-Autumn Festival through government advocacy and other means, and to re-establish the festival's important position in social life. Foshan Autumn Colors is a traditional large-scale mass recreational activity of the people of Foshan, Guangdong Province; it originated in “children's play”, in which children danced grass dragons to celebrate the harvest. Foshan Autumn Colors is held on moonlit nights around the Mid-Autumn Festival in the form of a grand parade, and is also called “Autumn Night”, “Putting Out the Autumn Colors” or “Putting Out the Autumn Scenes”. In every abundant year, residents of each trade or shop street spontaneously organized large-scale “putting out the autumn colors” activities; when a single shop street proposed it, the town's twenty-plus shop streets rose in response, and people from the surrounding countryside came to add to the excitement. Participants competed for preeminence in the parade demonstrations, and through long development a distinctive local folk custom was formed. Foshan Autumn Colors can be divided into two major categories: folk craft display and artistic performance. The folk craft display mainly comprises five types — framework crafts (zhazuo), masonry crafts (qizuo), needle crafts (zhenzuo), pasted modeling (piaosu) and engraving (diaopi) — while artistic performance mainly comprises five categories: folk music, dance, drama, acrobatics and costumed performance.
The autumn parade
The parade runs on a bright autumn night, with a single trade or shop calling its neighbours out and a line of floats stretching for miles.
The five craft families
The display side of the parade divides into frame building, masonry, needling, mounting and carving, with several makers often sharing one float.
The seven colours of the parade
The parade is organised into seven visual modes, from lamp floats bearing furniture to painted children riding high platforms.
Frame building and the makers’ shops
Frames of bamboo are clothed in paper and silk; realistic fruit and vegetables made in a rush, and cuttlefish bone, are the measures of a float’s quality.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Autumn Colors parade involves several thousand performers, and the procession stretches several li; its expressive forms are divided into seven “colors”: lantern colors, horse colors, vehicle colors, ground colors, water colors, floating colors and scenery colors. Foshan Autumn Colors is a procession organized by shops and neighborhood wards: when one ward proposed it, the whole town responded, the procession often stretching several li, with several thousand performers. The procession is divided into the seven colors of lantern, horse, vehicle, ground, water, floating and scenery. Among them, the “lantern colors” are those in which furniture, implements and simulated fruits and vegetables are mounted on lamp frames and carried along; the “horse colors” use paper-modeled livestock in the shape of real horses; the vehicle, ground and water colors each have their respective duties; while the “floating colors” and “scenery colors”, which mount children on high platforms with ingenious devices, show Foshan craftsmanship to the fullest.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Mid-Autumn Festival · Mid-Autumn Festival · Mid-Autumn Festival · Mid-Autumn Festival · Mid-Autumn Festival · Mid-Autumn Festival · Mid-Autumn Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Foshan Autumn Colors has a broad mass basis and is an important basis for the study of Lingnan local history, economy, culture and art. At present, some of the production techniques in the folk craft display of Autumn Colors — such as masonry crafts (qizuo), needle crafts (zhenzuo), pasted modeling (piaosu) and engraving (diaopi) — have only a few remaining inheritors and are in danger of being lost, urgently needing protection. He Xin (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Han, born in September 1946, a native of Foshan, Guangdong Province. In 1964 he entered the Foshan Folk Art Research Society, where he studied under the craft artist Liang Ci, learning the “scenery” techniques of Autumn Colors folk customs such as simulated fruits and vegetables, paper-pulp art and cuttlefish-bone carving. He constantly advanced in artistic pursuit, good at thinking and creating; after years of effort his skill became fully mastered, his works are finely made, and he is especially known for their vivid local character. The several dozen Autumn Colors artworks he has made over the years have taken part in the Foshan Autumn Colors grand parade many times, adding luster to the Foshan Autumn Colors festival. After retirement he established the Yatuxuan Studio, taking on three apprentices, all of whom have basically mastered the Autumn Colors production techniques, laying a good foundation for transmission work. He is a representative inheritor of the Mid-Autumn Festival (Foshan Autumn Colors), a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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