Do you know Double Ninth Festival in China?

Before have a China travel, you should know something about China culture. If you visit China in October and November, you may be lucky come across The Double Ninth Festival
The Double Ninth Festival, also named Chong Yang Festival, falls on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hence it gets name of Double Ninth Festival. On this day, people would like to drink chrysanthemum wine and have chrysanthemum cakes.

The chrysanthemum is a plant often used as a Chinese herbal medicine. People in ancient times believed that, in addition to detoxifcation, chrysanthemum could drive away evil spirits and prevent one from getting a chill in late autumn. So, making and drinking chrysanthemum could be traced back many centuries, and it became the traditional food on Double Ninth Festival, to avoid evil spirits and misfortunes. Besides, the Chinese word for wine isJiu, a homonym of the Chinese word for long, symbolizing longevity.

Another special food for this festival is chrysanthemum cakes. The Chinese word for cake isGao, a homonym of the Chinese word for high, symbolizing progress and promotion at work and in daily life and improvement in life year by year. In addition, mountains are high, so eating cakes can take the place of going for a climb -- by a stretch of the imagination.
Since nine is the highest odd digit, people take two of them together to signify longevity. Therefore, the ninth day of the ninth month has become a special day for people to pay their respects to the elderly and a day for the elderly to enjoy themselves. It has also been declared China's Day for the Elderly.
Origin
The festival is based on the theory ofYinandYang, the two opposing principles in nature.Yinis feminine, negative principle, whileYangis masculine and positive. In ancient times people believed that all natural phenomena could be explained by this theory. Numbers were also related to this theory. Even numbers belonged toYinand odd numbers toYang. The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is a day when the twoYangnumbers meet. So it is calledChong Yang.Chongmeans double in Chinese.Chong Yanghas been an important festival since ancient times.
When you have China travel deals during Double Ninth Festival, you can ask your tour guide more knowledge of Double Ninth Festival.