Monday October 26, 2009
Doubly special day
By MAJORIE CHIEW
The Double Nine Festival may slip by quietly on the local front, but in Hong Kong and China, Oct 26 is cause for celebration.
TODAY is the Double Nine or Double Yang Festival which falls on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. It is also called Chóngyángjié or Chung Yeung festival.
However, it is a quiet affair locally unlike the global hullabaloo associated with the other auspicious date: 9-9-09 in the lunar calendar.
As far as seasons go, this festival marks the first chill of autumn. and numerically, nine represents yang, the positive, masculine force in Chinese cosmology. Based on the yin-yang duality, odd numbers are associated with the male principle, and the occurrence of two yang numerals – nine – is deemed advantageous and supposedly brings good fortune and happiness to all.
The origins of the Chung Yeung festival are closely tied to the commemoration of one’s ancestors, like the Qing Ming festival in early April. Some even consider the day to be a Festival of the Dead.
The day of the Double Nine also has a dark side, associating it with fear, death, hills, high places, amulets and magical herbs. Many Chinese, including the locals, do not observe this day, probably because it has no cultural significance.
In Hong Kong, the Chung Yeung festival is a public holiday. Many Hong Kongers will busy themselves with graveyard rituals on this day, quite like Qing Ming.
“Apparently, the folks mix the graveyard rituals for both festivals, depending on the availability of family members. Special traffic arrangements have to be applied to graveyard sites during the Chung Yeung and Qing Ming festivals,” says a Hong Konger who declined to be named.
The tradition of drinking chrysanthemum tea or wine on this day seems to have died out in Hong Kong. “For our generation as well as our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, we don’t drink chrysanthemum tea or wine anymore on Chung Yeung Festival,” she says, adding that most people have probably forgotten the origins of the festival that she learnt during her schooldays.
How it began
The origin of this custom can be traced to a story from the Han Dynasty. A famous practitioner of Taoist arts named Fei Changfang warned a friend, Huan Jing, of an impending disaster. Fei advised Huan to pack some food and a jug of chrysanthemum wine and take his family to the shelter of a high hill. Huan heeded the advice.
Later that day, when he returned home, he found all his livestock dead. It dawned on him that he and his family had survived, thanks to Fei’s warning.
Hence, chrysanthemum wine and hill-climbing came to be associated with the ushering in of autumn and to commemorate Huan Jing’s escape from calamity.
Double Yang day is also a time for chrysanthemum parties to admire the blooms of the chrysanthemum, the flower of autumn and a symbol of longevity and good health.
According to the Book of Changes, I Ching, the Double Nine day has “too much yang” and is a potentially “dangerous date”.
The festival originated as “a day to drive danger away” but over time, it evolved to become a day of celebration.
In ancient China, probably during the Han Dynasty, the emperor and his attendants would adorn their hair with zhuyu (Cornus officinalis, a species of dogwood) plant, eat rice cakes and drink chrysanthemum wine to dispel bad luck, and pray for longevity.
The festival is an occasion for hiking and chrysanthemum appreciation in modern-day China. Some, inspired by the beautiful autumn scenery, see it as a time for wine and poetry. Schoolchildren learn poems about chrysanthemums, and many localities host chrysanthemum exhibitions. Mountain climbing contests are also popular and winners are crowned with wreaths of zhuyu.
It is customary to climb a mountain, drink chrysanthemum wine and wear zhuyu to ward off misfortune. Whilst traditionalists drink home-made chrysanthemum wine, others sip chrysanthemum tea instead. Chrysanthemum and zhuyu supposedly have cleansing qualities; they are used to cleanse the air in the house and cure illnesses.
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