Today is Double Ninth Festival (
Although many still know of the festival's existence, observance has waned and its origin has largely been forgotten.
The oldest known story of the festival's origin dates from the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25-220) and goes as follows:
Huan Jing (
Whether history or legend, the story of Huan Jing contains all the elements of the festival that would be celebrated for the next two millennia. Friends travel to the suburbs, climb a hill, drink chrysanthemum wine, roast meat, and compose and recite poetry.
Chrysanthemum wine, made of fermented flowers, is China's best known medicinal liquor. It is credited with curing headaches, paralysis and numerous minor ailments. Wealthy families made lattice frameworks that held hundreds of pots of chrysanthemums so the festival was also called the "Chrysanthemum Festival" (菊節) or "Golden Festival" (
Dogwood, a bitter herb said to ward off evil, was sewn into small pouches to be carried or worn on one's clothing. Chinese medical explanations for these Double Ninth customs are that chrysanthemums and dogwood eliminate the dangers that arise from an excess of yang or, simply, that exercise and fresh air are healthy in late autumn, a time of decay and epidemics.
As with most Chinese festivals, food is important on Double Ninth day. Traditional foods include pickled crabs, persimmons and fish flavored with chrysanthemum petals. Flower Cakes decorated with dates and prunes are also offered as gifts. A rural folk belief states: "If you don't eat cakes at Double Ninth, you won't have any coffin bearers when you die."
In former times, parents would invite their married daughters home to eat these cakes so the festival also became known as the Festival for Daughters (
In 1947, the mountain climbing element was used as a military exercise so that Double Ninth was renamed the Festival of Physical Exercise (體育節). Then, in 1953, at the suggestion of Taipei citizens, the government renamed the day the Festival for Honoring the Elderly (
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