Double Ninth Festival
01 · Historical Records
The observance of Chongyang (the Double Ninth) as a festival can be traced back to the Han dynasty. Today the Chongyang Festival has been given a new meaning. In 1989, China designated the ninth day of the ninth lunar month each year as Senior Citizens' Day, harmoniously combining tradition with modernity and turning this traditional festival into a new-style occasion of respecting, honoring, loving, and helping the elderly.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is called Chongyang ("Double Yang"), also known as Chongjiu ("Double Nine"). The Xijing Zaji (Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital) records: "Jia Peilan, a palace lady of Emperor Wu of Han, wore cornels on the ninth day of the ninth month, ate peng'er cakes, and drank chrysanthemum wine, which was said to prolong life." After more than two thousand years of change, the Chongyang Festival has become a pluralistic festival accompanied by a great variety of customs. During the Chongyang Festival, the people hold all kinds of activities, including climbing heights, gathering medicinal herbs, wearing cornels, admiring chrysanthemums, drinking chrysanthemum wine, hunting, willow-shooting archery, flying kites, playing cuju (ancient football), eating Chongyang cakes, married women returning to their natal homes, and showing filial respect to the elderly. The handicrafts and products made for the festival are equally rich, chiefly cornels, chrysanthemums, chrysanthemum wine, Chongyang cakes, longevity-star figures, and toys. Offices, organizations, and communities across the country often take this occasion to organize elderly people who have retired from their posts on autumn outings to enjoy the scenery — playing by the water or climbing mountains for exercise — so that their bodies and minds can relax in the embrace of nature; in many families, younger members also support their aged elders on outings to the countryside or specially prepare some delicious food for them. The Chongyang Festival enjoys the advantages of favorable timing (clear autumn skies) and harmony among people (honoring the elderly); it is a major festival of autumn, with related customs including gathering medicinal herbs, paying respects to the elderly, brewing medicinal wines for health, and climbing heights. Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan attach particular importance to the sea-god worship activities held on this day. The Chongyang Festival provides a typical case study for research on how traditional festival culture adapts to the development of the times. The transformation of the Chongyang Festival into Senior Citizens' Day has played a positive role in fostering healthy social mores and also carries great practical significance for safeguarding national reunification and strengthening national identity.
Ascending the heights
The oldest and most widespread custom: climbing to a high place, with dogwood sprigs and chrysanthemum wine taken to the summit.
Wearing dogwood sprigs
Dogwood sprigs are tucked into the sash or worn in a sachet, sewn in five-coloured silk in the countryside and in brocade with beads in the towns.
Admiring chrysanthemums and drinking chrysanthemum wine
Chrysanthemums are picked for vases and for medicine, while the wine brewed before the festival is sealed and opened the following year.
Making Double Ninth cakes
Layered cakes of rice flour, bean paste and jujube, steamed and cut into blocks to be shared among neighbours.
Married women returning to their natal home
A northern custom in which married daughters return to their natal homes for the day, with feasts and escort by their husbands.
Autumn outings for the elderly
The modern phase of the festival, with agencies and communities organizing outings and mountain walks for retired people.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Chongyang is a nationwide festival, and regional variations fall mainly into three areas: the choice of climbing sites, festival foods, and the forms of honoring the elderly. Climbing sites differ from place to place: in the Jiangnan region people mostly climb towers to view the rivers, while in the north they mostly climb mountains; temples and Daoist monasteries are often chosen as destinations. The old record of Emperor Wu of Han's palace lady wearing cornels, eating peng'er, and drinking chrysanthemum wine (as recorded in the Xijing Zaji) shows that these practices originally coexisted in the court and among the people, and only in later ages did northern and southern emphases gradually diverge. Sea-god worship belongs to another path — in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, Chongyang is often marked by going to the seaside to thank the gods, with fishermen offering new grain and new wine to the sea; alongside the inland theme of honoring the elderly, this constitutes a second strongly localized way of observing the festival. The way of turning the festival into collective activity is, however, similar everywhere: offices, organizations, and communities mostly organize already-retired elderly people on autumn outings to enjoy the scenery, playing by the water or climbing mountains for exercise so that their bodies and minds can relax; in many families, younger members support their elders on outings to the countryside, or prepare extra tasty meals inviting the elderly to eat first.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Double Ninth Festival · Double Ninth Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
After Chongyang was designated Senior Citizens' Day, the most immediate change was that the festival's calendar expanded from the family to work units and communities: honoring the elderly used to be a private matter of each household, whereas today autumn outings, get-togethers, and free medical clinics are mostly funded and organized by neighborhood committees and work units; the festival has thus gained the support of administrative schedules and public funds — a situation no traditional festival has ever enjoyed before. At the same time, new tensions have arisen. Once the festival's name was fixed in administrative discourse, practices handed down since the Han dynasty — wearing cornels, sunning cornels, drinking chrysanthemum wine — have receded into mere "customs" and are no longer the mainstay of the festival; meanwhile the once-a-year collective activities easily lapse into formalism, with a single meal or a bag of rice counting as the whole celebration. How Chinese traditional festivals can adapt to the times while preserving the thickness of their inner rituals is a question for which Chongyang offers a sample that can be observed again and again.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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