October 25, 2020

Double Ninth Festival, China

Today, October 7, is the Double Ninth Festival in China. It is a day for people to eat Chongyang cake, drink chrysanthemum wine, climb mountains, and pay homage to chrysanthemums.

Chongyang Cake is steamed cake with two layers. Nuts and jujube (Chinese dates) are sandwiched between the layers. Since cake in Chinese is pronounced 'gao', which can also mean high, people consider climbing a high mountain to be the same as eating cake.

As nine is pronounced 'jiu' meaning long in Chinese, so people endow the word jiu with the meaning of longevity with a person's life. In the year of 1989, Chongyang Festival was designated as Senior's Day - a day to respect the elderly and to let them enjoy themselves.

Chongyang cake.

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