Cold Food Festival

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Cold Food Festival
Tomb Sweeping Festival
Cold Food Festival
Chinese name
Hanyu Pinyin
Hánshí jié
IPA[xǎn.ʂɻ̩̌ tɕjě]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationHòhnsihk jit
JyutpingHon4sik6 zit3
IPA[hɔːn˩.sek̚˨ tsiːt̚˧]
Southern Min
Hokkien POJHân si̍t cheh
Vietnamese nameVietnamese alphabetTết Hàn ThựcChữ Hán節寒食Korean nameHangul한식Hanja寒食

The Cold Food or Hanshi Festival (寒食节) is a

Three Kingdoms Period (3rd century), it was limited to three days in the spring around the Qingming solar term. Under the Tang, ancestral observance was limited to the single day which is now the Tomb-Sweeping Festival. The Tomb-Sweeping Festival is an official holiday in several countries, and the Cold Food Festival which stretches either side of it continues to see some observance in China, South Korea, and Vietnam
.

Legend

The usual story for the origin of the Cold Food and Tomb-Sweeping Festivals concerns the 7th-century-BC

self-sacrificing loyalty.[2]

During the

Wey, he used meat from his own thigh to make soup to relieve the prince's hunger.[3]

In 636 BC,

forest fire to be started around three sides of the mountain to smoke Jie and his mother out of hiding.[6] Instead of coming out, they were burnt alive.[1] Jie's charred corpse was found still standing, embracing[6] or tightly bound[5] to a tree. In his remorse, the duke renamed the mountain Mt. Jie, established the town still known as Jiexiu ("Jie's Rest"),[citation needed] and inaugurated the Cold Food Festival as a memorial period for Jie.[1]

In addition to the festival, the story also occasioned the Chinese proverb that, "while some can burn off an entire mountain, others are kept from even lighting up to eat their rice".[citation needed]

History

Li Tang's The Civilized Duke of Jin Recovering His State (1140)

The first part of this legend appears to be historical. In the earliest accounts, however, Jie is more prideful than sad and is not killed in a fire. The 4th-century-BC

immortal.[10][11]

The Cold Food Festival is first mentioned in

Mt Mian.[22][23] These prohibitions failed to such an extent that, by the time of Jia Sixie's c. 540 Qimin Yaoshu, a day-long Cold Food Festival had spread across most of China, moved to the day before the Qingming solar term.[24][25]

The Cold Food Festival grew to a three-day period

Shangsi.[28] The Cold Food Festival had almost completely disappeared by the end of the Qing.[1]

Controversy

Since the early 7th century, Chinese and Western scholars have argued for alternative origins for the festival.

Frazer.[41] Eberhard connected it with his idea of a prehistoric spring-based calendar and made the Cold Food Festival a remnant of its original New Year.[42][43]

The unanimous connection of the festival to Jie Zhitui in the early sources and the dependence of these later theories on the Cold Food Festival's occurrence in late spring—when it in fact began as a mid-winter observance—suggests that none of them are likely accurate.

Taoists.[49]

Observance

China

The Cold Food Festival was originally observed at

cock fighting, playing on swings, beating blankets, and tug-of-war games.[citation needed
]

The Cold Food Festival is generally ignored in modern China, except to the extent that it has influenced some of the activities and traditional foods for the

Tomb-Sweeping Festival.[29] In the city of Jiexiu in Shanxi Province, near where Jie died, locals still commemorate the festival, but even there the tradition of eating cold food is no longer practiced.[citation needed
]

South Korea

The Korean equivalent Hansik (

Arbor Day, public cemeteries are crowded with visitors planting trees around the tombs of their ancestors.[50]

Vietnam

Main article:
Tết Hàn Thực

The Vietnamese equivalent Tết Hàn Thực is celebrated in most parts of the country on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month, but only marginally. People cook glutinous rice balls called bánh trôi but the holiday's origins are largely forgotten, and the fire taboo is also largely ignored.[51]

See also

Notes

  1. similar stories about the ministers Qu Yuan and Wu Zixu
    .
  2. ^ According to the usual Chinese reckoning of the seasons.[15]

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e Wu (2014), p. 126
  2. ^ Hanan (1981), p. 205.
  3. ^ a b Legge (1872), p. 191.
  4. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 53.
  5. ^ a b Ling & Shih (1999), p. 226.
  6. ^ a b Sukhu (2017), p. 179.
  7. ^ a b Durrant et al. (2016), p. 379.
  8. ^ Legge (1872), p. 192.
  9. ^ a b c Holzman (1986), p. 52.
  10. ^ Biographies of the Immortals (in Chinese).
  11. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 68.
  12. ^ Pokora (1975), pp. 122 & 136–7.
  13. ^ Book of the Later Han (in Chinese), vol. 61, §2024.
  14. ^ Holzman (1986), pp. 54–55.
  15. ^ a b Holzman (1986), p. 69.
  16. ^ a b Holzman (1986), p. 57.
  17. ^ Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era (in Chinese), Vol. 28, §8a; Vol. 30, §6a–b; & Vol. 869, §7b.
  18. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 56.
  19. ^ Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era (in Chinese), Vol. 30, §6a.
  20. ^ Book of Jin (in Chinese), vol. 105, §2749–50.
  21. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 58.
  22. ^ Wei Shou, Book of Wei (in Chinese), vol. 7, §140 & 179.
  23. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 59.
  24. ^ a b c Qimin Yaoshu (in Chinese), vol. 9, §521.
  25. ^ a b c Holzman (1986), p. 60.
  26. ^ a b Zong Lin; et al., Record of the Seasons of Jingchu (in Chinese).
  27. ^ a b Holzman (1986), p. 61.
  28. ^ a b Chapman (2014), p. 484.
  29. ^ a b Zhang Qian (1 April 2017), "Change of Weather, Rich Food Mark the Arrival of Qingming", Shanghai Daily, Shanghai: Shanghai United Media Group.
  30. ^ Liu Xin (ed.), "Autumn Offices", Rites of Zhou (in Chinese), §95.
  31. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 55.
  32. ^ Li Fu, Correcting Errors (in Chinese), §13a.
  33. ^ Holzman (1986), p. 64.
  34. ^ De Groot (1886).
  35. ^ Holzman (1986), pp. 63–4.
  36. ^ Johnston (1918), p. 472.
  37. ^ Moriya (1951), p. 756.
  38. ^ Frazer (1918), pp. 136–7 & 329–30.
  39. ^ Holzman (1986), pp. 66–7.
  40. ^ Lévi-Strauss (1966), pp. 349–51 & 397–9.
  41. ^ Holzman (1986), pp. 69–71.
  42. ^ Eberhard (1942), p. 28 & 37.
  43. ^ Holzman (1986), pp. 67–8.
  44. ^ Holzman (1986), pp. 51–2.
  45. ^ a b Milburn (2015), p. 326.
  46. ^ a b Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian (in Chinese), Vol. 114.
  47. ^ a b Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era (in Chinese), Vol. 556, §2514.
  48. ^ a b Milburn (2015), p. 268.
  49. ^ Pecheva, Annie (15 Nov 2012), "The Rest Day of the Spirits", The Blog.
  50. ^ "Korea's Four Major National Holidays". Seoul Metropolitan Government. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  51. ^ Đặng Đức Siêu (2006). Sổ tay văn hoá Việt Nam [Handbook of Vietnamese Culture]. Nhà Xuất bản Lao động.

Bibliography

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